At first glance, Studio Swine’s project Hair Highway may seem a bit gross—human hair is involved after all—but the technique and finished product will leave you absolutely speechless. Through a process that combines human hair with natural resin, Studio Swine yields a composite material with the look, and even the grain, of natural wood. In terms of color, Hair Highway c...
Thanks to the incessant holiday music playing in stores since late October, you are probably aware that it’s almost the holidays. For some, it’s a time of joy and excitement. For others, it’s a time of crippling anxiety and dread. Either way, you’re pretty much expected to buy things for people you love, so why not buy awesome things? Thus, in the spirit of the season, w...
Shanghai-based design brand Stellar Works presented its new signature collection at EDIT by designjunction in Milan during the design week. The exhibition featured their cross-cultural cosmos of furniture, lighting and accessories. Stellar Works stitches together past traditions with present approaches for tomorrow’s design needs. Their ethos as an international melti...
Design Miami begins on Wednesday, and ArchiExpo will be interviewing a whole host of interesting characters, including Bastian Bischoff of Humans since 1982. The Stockholm-based designer will be presenting new work at the Victor Hunt Gallery. Smaller versions of their piece “A million times” will continue the exploration of clocks as something outside of simple practical...
As tradition stands, IMM Cologne annually nominates a new designer to create a “house in a house” in the Pure Village hall. A grandiose space of 240 m² welcomes furniture, colors, materials, lighting and accessories by the chosen Guest of Honor. This year they welcomed architects Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu from Neri&Hu Design and Research Office based in Shanghai. The de...
With the holiday season coming (and a massive advent calendar in our office), it was hard to resist talking about this beautiful initiative by Studio Wessels Boer in Amsterdam. Indeed, when you look at “It Started With a Dime“, it’s hard not to be reminded of the small doors of an advent calendar hiding 24 tiny treasures. However, the goal here is a little different. Wi...
Contrary to mass-manufactured goods, handmade goods imply time, effort and thus a higher price tag. Swedish designer Jenny Nordberg decided to see if she could apply the speed and turnover of mass production to a handmade product. Her experiment, “3 to 5 minutes – Rapid handmade furniture”, demonstrates a handmade manufacturing technique that produces furniture in 3 to ...
Jonathan Muecke doesn’t like labels. Working from his studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he toes the line of design, teetering into art, architecture and back again. Indeed, his creations would be equally convincing in a private residence or modern art museum. Case in point: Step Stool is part of the collection at MAD in New York. For Open Objects, his second solo exhibit...
Slowly and steadily, time sculpts the urban landscape. Pollution, graffiti and precipitation leave their indelible mark on the city through a simple addition and subtraction of materials. Rain erodes and soot creates, building up on windowsills in a minuscule geography that often goes unnoticed. Often, but not always. Fortunately, there are some that take notice. Broo...
Summer is almost here, and it’s becoming impossible to move without breaking a sweat. ‘Tis the season to slow down and relax, and for that, there is always the ever practical, always reliable hammock. But what if we went above and beyond the hammock? What if? Let’s check out 10 suspended seats with an unusual twist. Tropicalia by Patricia Urquiola for Moroso Colorf...
These breathtaking floor installations are created by hand-placing bagillions of tiny mirrors, crystals, pieces of chromed metal, optical glass and precious stones in patterns once only accessible through the ubiquitous kaleidoscope tube. The craziest part of these mesmerizingly precise installations is that all of the pieces are loosely placed, AKA not fixated, glued ...
Hey there, procrastinators! We see you scurrying around on December 24th, ripping items off shelves without so much as a glance at the price tag. It’s all part of the fun, right? We get it, and we made this list just for you. Of course, we realize that you probably won’t actually get around to ordering any of these until it’s too late, but we hope that it will at least g...
Les Palettes by M&M designers makes upcycling accessible to even the least crafty among us. Yes, even you can create upcycled furniture. Well, maybe. We haven’t tried it yet, but we really like the idea: Les Palettes gives you instructions to create a series of furniture from recycled pallets! Simply procure a few pallets and a handful of power tools, and you’ll have the...
Trying to sum up a whole year in one building, one project or one idea is impossible. But somehow, Edward Burtynsky‘s 2013 exposition in Toronto comes close. Even though these photographs weren’t taken this year, it’s their compilation and exposition called Water Photography that mattered here. Indeed, these wonderful pictures, taken from the sky, reveal and remind us wh...
Inspired by the hand-made boucherouite rugs of the Atlas mountains in Morocco, Jan Kath exhibited his Lost Weave collection during Berlin Design Week at the Nyhues Flagship store. Using hand-processed highland wool from Tibet, Chinese silk and nettle fiber, Kath confects the rugs—applying the same technique used to weave cushions for Tibetan monks—with Eastern knowhow an...
Marble has officially made its comeback. It’s been creeping its way into contemporary design over the past few years, but this year’s Milan Design Week confirmed that marble is absolutely everywhere. From tableware to tables, lighting and more, designers are reintegrating the mottled material into their work. So, if you still think that marble is better off at the Parthe...
Design Miami officially kicks off today, and we are exceptionally excited to meet with Lebanese designers Marc Baroud and Marc Dibeh, creators of Wires. Commissioned by Art Factum Gallery, Wires has been to Dubai and back, making its way to Miami Beach this week. The minimalist designs originated as 2D drawings before being manipulated into 3D forms. Each piece is create...
We’ve all been amazed by the images taken from the International Space Station (ISS), pictures of our countries, cities and how they look like at night. The dazzling golden images of our brightly-lit metropolises reveal their complex architecture and city planning. Highlighting the complicated way humans have rearranged their environment to suit their needs. London-based...
What if sour was something that you could touch? How would it feel? Copenhagen-based designer Martyna Barbara Golik attempts to answer these questions with her Touch That Taste! project: five tangible objects that translate taste into touch. Sweet is interpreted as a pouf which imitates the feeling of sinking into something like when sugar melts slowly on your tongue, w...
The novel MyRoom concept combines a selection of unlikely partners. French company Somfy is specialized in blinds, shutters, alarms and gates, while Muzéo is an expert in art prints and frames. With the help of Maud Bury (an interior designer that spent ten years under the tutelage of Philippe Starck!), Somfy and Muzéo went about designing the ultimate customizable hotel...
“My photographs are all that remain of the sculptures.” Environmental artist and designer Martin Hill makes sculptures in nature that return to nature. His designs illuminate the idea of a new model of progress where the living world on which life relies is not destroyed. Using local materials running on renewable energy, waste is eliminated and multiple benefits and job...
Navid Baraty examines the world from the top down. Dangling over the edge of skyscrapers, he captures society as few would ever see it. The Brooklyn-based artist began the series while living in Tokyo where he discovered that the dizzying views provided a lot of insight into a society’s character. His work has been featured in several major publications, including Nation...
Nuances are perhaps the highest level of language. We rarely stop to consider how beautiful it is to understand the subtle shades of a phrase or word. Paying homage to these linguistic subtleties, Japanese studio Nendo designed a series of Rain Bottles. The Japanese language has dozens of different words for the English word ‘rain’ – variations that depend upon condit...
Do you pay an exorbitant price for a dwelling that serves only for sleep? If so, you might be a modern nomad. Fortunately, Studio ARTE gets it. With their NOMAD Living project in Algarve, Portugal, the design ensemble explores the boundaries and flexibility of the modern wayfaring lifestyle. Born out of a disused shipping container, the project is a cheap and obtainable ...
Small confession: we are deathly afraid of heights. Our paralyzing fear is the reason that Object Élevé by Dutch designer Mieke Meijer strikes terror in our hearts, yet we would put it in our house without hesitation. Despite the vertiginous heights, combining a staircase with storage and a desk is brilliant, and the design is gorgeous. The oak and steel structure was...
In an ideal world, work would be so much fun that extra hours would feel effortless. Unfortunately, the majority of us spend our weeks slogging through until Friday. Depressing? Perhaps. But we’ve rounded up a few objects that may not necessarily make work more fun, but their convenient multiple functions will definitely make it easier. Islands by Jordi Blasi Islan...
The work of Berlin-based artist Eva Berendes invokes a beguiling effect on the viewer, which is imposed by intentionally blurred lines between product and art. Geometric forms and pops of bold colors permeate her creations which include room dividers, folding screens and wall units. Her pieces recall real functionality, yet certainly stand on their own as art. Grid lines...
We don’t want to speak to soon, but it seems to be warming up. The trees are in bloom and our vague memories of the sun are becoming more vivid. We may not have completely shed our winter skin, but we can’t help but dream of sunscreen, barbecues and swimming pools. The last frost may not have yet thawed, but we’re already compiling our wishlist of poolside lounging mater...
This small creation by the Japanese design studio is nothing complicated, but it works extremely well. A simple and fun idea that yet perfectly sums up nendo‘s philosophy of thinking out of the box, while remaining innocent and childlike. This set of paper blocks was created as an insert for a Japanese lifestyle magazine. It consists of a series of flat paper forms print...
Brazilian specialist of wood sculpture, Henrique Oliveira is back with a new sensational piece or, rather, a new multisensory piece. Presented in Frankfurt, at the Schirn Kunsthalle, this wooden cave confuses the visitors’ sensations by playing with their senses. Entering the small doorway, the visitor looses track of the actual exhibition space, and gets sucked into thi...
For this year’s London Design Festival, the American Hardwood Export Council and Benchmark Furniture have sponsored the Wish List: What I Have Always Wanted, a project that brought to life the wishes of ten iconic designers. Fashion design legend Paul Smith’s wished for a garden shed and worked with custom furniture designer and maker Nathalie de Leval to create the 3...
New York-based, Israeli artist Daniel Rozin creates interactive digital art that turn the idea of passively viewing artwork on its head. His work, such as his recent PomPom Mirror, gets the viewer involved by responding to their presence and movement. The interactive “mirror” is composed of no less than 928 spherical puffs of faux fur. The beige and black puffs are disp...
In 2014, Saint-Gobain‘s Parisian gallery, A Glass House, welcomed Dyson and French architects Didier & Fabrice Knoll as part of an unprecedented collaboration that reinvents essential spaces in the home. Dubbed Projet 1, 2, 3, the innovative capsule was developed in response to the increasingly limited space in which we live. The project was on display at last week’s Equ...
Equip’Hotel opens its doors in Paris tomorrow with a plethora of products for the hospitality industry. We thought we’d celebrate by spotlighting to our favorite part of the hospitality industry: the good ol’ bar. Except we’re taking it to the next level. Everyone likes a tipple from to time, and ambiance may not protect you from spilled beer and your fellow obnoxiously ...
Inspired by traditional African tribal masks, Amsterdam-based conceptual designer Lisette Appeldorn created her own contemporary interpretation with Raster. A minimalist rendition of various animals, including a fox, bear and crocodile, the masks are made from thin plywood. The designer used different folding techniques to create 3D geometric forms and patterns (that inc...
Staying power is a particularly rare thing. Collections of tables, chairs and mirrors slip in and out of our memories like dreams. Even the biggest sensation of the year frequently becomes a vague imprint mere months later. What determines a design’s ability to mark a generation? Universal appeal? Exclusivity? Luck? Perhaps all of the above, but a handful of designers...
