Inspiration

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...

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 artist Karen Margolis has a profound fascination with the inner workings of the mind. Her art, through a beautiful and almost obsessive repetition of circles, is actually a calculated expression of human psychology. Circles of shadow, color and absence map out the thoughts and feelings flying through our gray matter. Drawing upon her background in psychology,...

What looked like a great exhibition turned out to be more than that. From January 25th to April 6th, the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is hosting one major event. A few figures can sum it up: 7 architects from 6 countries and 4 continents have the task of filling more than 2,000 square meters with one monumental exhibition. The point is to make architecture interact with ou...

Adding to his body of work titled An Aggregation, Seoul-based artist Seon Ghi Bahk is currently presenting his latest installations at the Zadok Gallery in Miami. Known for his delicate charcoal installations, Bahk hangs the substance from nylon threads to create concrete and abstract shapes that simultaneously seem to be crumbling, floating and flying away. More specif...

“It is not about what you see but how you see it.” And from behind the lens of Lebanese photographer Serge Najjar, Beirut’s concrete jungle flourishes with unexpected geometric patterns, contrasts, colors and stolen moments. If such elements exist outside of Najjar’s digital world, his patience and timing are impeccable. Every Saturday, Najjar drives without aim, until s...

A temporary home has found its place in the center of the magnificent Cortile della Farmacia at the University of Milan. Presented by Panasonic, Sliding Nature is the design of Torafu Architects. It is being presented as part of the Feeding New Ideas for the City exhibit at the university and as part of the iSaloni satellite, Fuorisalone. Sliding Nature possesses the es...

Raise your hand if you often eat in front of the television, or at the computer, or standing in the kitchen, or in your bed. Okay, maybe that last one is just us, but the point is that many individuals no longer sit down at a proper table to eat. Mealtimes are often used for multitasking, however eating is also a profoundly social act. In order to bring the focus back o...

Some may say Rhode Island School of Design graduate Annie Evelyn has a thing for chairs. After creating a chair-shaped ring called “Sit on My Finger” and an “Impolite Chair” with pompoms, we were right to expect interesting things from New Colony Furniture, her Brooklyn-based company, but she produced more than expected! There’s a reason why the Squishy chair made quite ...

What happens when a designer is facing difficulties? French designer Julien Carretero wanted to use the flexibility and low-cost of aluminum to avoid the additional costs of aluminum injection molding. After a few try-outs, he found out aluminum didn’t need to be too warm to melt and thus came his idea. Carretero figured this reasonably high temperature of melting wasn’t...

As Chaplin pointed out, in our modern era, time seems to have lost its essence. Constantly running around, constantly late, trying to keep up with the latest news, we have lost track of it. This is perhaps what Dutch designer Maarten Baas is trying to point out with his Grandmother Clock and, more generally, with his Real Time series. After the success of the Grandfa...

Concrete is no longer just the building block of architecture. As brute materials increasingly replace plastic, more and more designers have undertaken an exploration of concrete in design. Beautifully raw even when smoothed, concrete can give visual weight but can also appear astonishingly light. Of course, concrete may not always be the most practical material, but it’...

In a few years, China has become one of the most powerful countries in the world. But its growth hasn’t only been economic. The development of its cities and of its urban planning also has also come with a number of major architectural projects. Among these impressive buildings designed by some of the most iconic architects of our time, there have been quite a big number...

Last week, we kicked off our top articles with a recap of our most visited projects of 2014, and this week it’s time to get inspired. An artist who mixes her media with science topped our inspiration list, while our concept of “naked houses” (it’s a thing, really) also raised some eyebrows. Check out the top five most inspiring articles from the past year.

So, we revisited the year’s top projects and the most inspiring articles from 2014, so it’s time to turn to products. Bicycles, planters and rugs, oh my! Have a look at the top five products from the past year.

Reality is such a relative thing. New-York based street artist Aakash Nihalani decided to play with our senses with his exhibition Vantage, a series of awesome optical illusions that fill the walls of Wunderkammern as well as parts of Rome‘s walls. The show opened on April 5th and will run until May 17th. Throughout this collection and most of his work, Nihalani raises t...

See ya, paint! See ya, tile! Wallpaper is back, and it’s not your grandmother’s wallpaper. Obviously, we’ve got nothing against grandmothers, but the seventies were traumatic for our retinas. Fortunately, wallpaper is no longer about covering every surface, but rather about creating pertinent focal points or interesting accents in a room. Don’t believe us? Several des...

The next generation of Zaha Hadid’s Liquid Glacial table was unveiled yesterday at David Gill Galleries for an exhibition that will run until November 16th. A gravity-defying design, the table perfectly resembles a puddle of crystal clear water, frozen in time. At once fanciful and authentic, the table top is smooth and flat but reveals delicate ripples beneath the surfa...

Founded in 1979, the Pritzker Prize is considered one of the top distinctions in the field of architecture. Every year, a living architect is awarded the honor, and the 2014 winner is none other than Japanese architect Shigeru Ban.Known more for his temporary works of humanitarian architecture than permanent icons, Mr. Ban represents an anomaly in his field. His interest...

After stumbling upon the colorful, sun-bleached photos of self-taught photographer Matthieu Venot, we immediately assumed that the French artist was documenting his sun-kissed beach life somewhere near Marseille, Antibes or Nice. However, it turns out that he is based in Brest! BREST! We have been to Brest, and it evokes neither sun nor color in our collective memories, ...

Young Belgian art and architecture duo Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout van Vaerenbergh of Gijs Van Vaerenbergh have created a steel labyrinth for the C-Mine Art Center in Genk, Belgium. The C-Mine Art Center is a former coal mine that has been transformed into a hub of creativity. It is at once cultural center, design center, cinema and incubator for young designers. For the n...

Ah, Paris. We never get tired of Paris. The whirlwind of Paris Design Week spread from the Marais all the way to Maison & Objet in the suburb of Villepinte. We ran from stand to stand at Maison & Objet and from exhibition to exhibition in the city to find a selection of products that we love. Of course, our list is not limited to ten! Petite Friture, Collection Partic...

Kids may not have all the fun, but adulthood can definitely be a drag. Fortunately for the 18+ crowd, playful design is on the rise, and some of our childhood favorites are being revamped and revisited . So, in honor of the weekend, let’s take a few moments to indulge our inner child. And who knows? You might find some early holiday gift ideas!

The holidays are coming faster than a high speed train, but you’ve still got time to decorate! We’re not in love with the idea of a red and green explosion, so we decided to seek out some options. We’ve selected ten holiday decorations that we think will make the season just as jolly while stepping a little bit out of the holiday mold.

No longer relegated to grandma’s rump room or your newborn child’s nursery, dare we say that rocking chairs rock? New materials, bold colors and modern lines and ergonomics have rejuvenated the humble old wooden rocker. There are quite a few modern offerings that are sure to surprise and delight you, and we’ve compiled our favorites here for your rocking pleasure.

We were rather ambivalent about terrariums…actually, we’re still rather ambivalent about terrariums, but 10¹² TERRA is the exception. Designed by Daisuke Tsumanuma and Kenichi Yamada, the minimal glass frames strip branches, leaves and flowers down to their roots – which is precisely what makes them interesting. The clutter and kitsch of traditional terrariums is removed...

Who doesn’t love the crisp coolness of clean hotel sheets? We certainly do. Still, there’s something unsatisfying about the uniformity and recycled air that always makes it fantastic to come home. However, we’ve found five hotel interiors that take a large step above ordinary – perhaps so far from ordinary that they will even make you abandon the idea of home. No, we’re ...

Tomorrow, Germany and Argentina will face each other in the 2014 World Cup final. The stakes are high and the pressure is on – only one can emerge victorious. In honor of this exciting day that only comes around once every four years, we decided to have our own showdown – an architecture showdown. So, who will win? Germany or Argentina? Let’s check out the line up for Ge...

For this year’s Dutch Design Week, Kiki van Eijk and Joost van Bleiswijk decided to do some tidying up. Using old sketches, scrap material and protoypes, they created several new products which were then exhibited at their Eindhoven workshop. Titled ‘CLEAN UP! The Mess’, the exhibition included shelves made from wood and crumpled copper, lighting made from industrial mac...

Handcrafted design isn’t just for DIY Pinterest projects, we promise. In fact, we dedicated an entire e-magazine to the topic! And with the help of associations like Crafts Council Nederland (CCNL), craftsmanship is rising up the design ranks to become a category of its own. Dutch Darlings is a competition organized by CCNL to encourage, exhibit and reward sustainable c...

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...

“Go home with the idea, not the object!” The Studio Formafantasma design duo could not have uttered a more fitting statement for their current exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands. Titled Prima Materia, the show surveys the plenteous work of Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin. Indeed, in the span of their relatively short career, t...