Innovation. Experimentation. Imagination. Dutch Design Week presents a concentration of creative energy that is yet unmatched in Europe. Perhaps it stems from the Design Academy Eindhoven‘s hotbed of new talent or from the freethinking spirit of established talents like Piet Hein Eek. Whatever the source, Eindhoven’s industrial backdrop was overflowing with great design....
Carl Kleiner’s Postures series is a collection of pictures of tulips held in various positions with wires. Documenting the surrounding world with his camera, he lets his photography serve as a medium for bringing his insightful visions to life. The fragility of the flower figures contrasts with either a black or white background, and as they hang in the air the flowers ...
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...
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...
For last October’s Science Festival, French photographer Romain Giusiano was able to capture an unusual performance. During the visit of a waste processing plant, comedian and dancers started interacting with the extraordinary venue, exposing the plant from a brand new angle. The photo shoot resulted in a series of almost surreal images. But the interesting aspect of Gi...
The Stockholm Furniture Fair is officially in full swing! Each year, the Greenhouse serves as a “Garden of New Ideas”, displaying new talents from around the world. For the second year in a row, Stockholm-based Note Design Studio designed the hall. Intent on representing the social aspect of the event, the Swedish design studio put participant and customer interaction a...
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 ...
Nadja Swarovski is committed to innovation. Her cutting-edge design collaborations include the likes of Ron Arad and Zaha Hadid, collaborations which demonstrate the versatility of Swarovski crystal and keep the brand perfectly relevant. Ms. Swarovski is equally dedicated to the Swarovski Waterschool, a program that seeks to teach children about the importance of sust...
December is rapidly drawing to a close, which means it’s the perfect moment to revisit the most visited articles of 2014. From a Vietnamese house in Ho Chi Minh to the Mojave desert in Nevada, let’s take a little trip down memory lane. Here are the top five projects from the past year.
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...
An architect and urban planner since 1986, Edouard François is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées. He established his own studio in 1998 and has since been infusing the likes of France, India and Sri Lanka with his sustainability-focused projects. It’s easy to describe the flamboyant French architect ...
Villa Kugelhof by Paul de Ruiter Architects is a self-sufficient, carbon-neutral home that has won the prestigious Dutch ARC13 Architecture Award as well as a FIABCI Prix d’Excellence Award in the Sustainable Development and Residential (Low Rise) category. Situated in Noord-Beveland in the southerwestern Netherlands, the residence is located on 25 hectares of protected ...
German-born, New York-based artist Markus Linnenbrink embraces color with open arms. In fact, the vast majority of his work is spent examining color and its impact. But he didn’t always throw himself wholeheartedly into the rainbow abyss. He even used to be a little frightened of color. We find this reassuring in lieu of the overwhelming sense of panic we feel when simpl...
British artist Steve Messam is known for his striking, temporary landscape installations. Most recently, the artist completed PaperBridge, a crimson footbridge made from 20,000 sheets of paper. Currently open to the public, the bridge spans a babbling brook in the Grisedale Valley of England’s Lake District. Two footpaths lead up to the bridge on either side, making it l...
In the wake of his melting facade and upside down building, British artist Alex Chinneck continues to work large-scale magic tricks with his latest installation. Titled ‘Take My Lightening but Don’t Steal My Thunder’, the piece perfectly replicates London’s iconic Covent Garden Market building, making it seem as if the upper portion of the 184-year-old structure has deta...
Last week, Basque furniture brand Alki debuted the world’s first bioplastic chair, Kuskoa Bi. The impressively smooth result of the plant-based polymer got us wondering: what other intelligent bio-composites are out there? We rounded up five chairs by five designers use some unlikely natural materials. Terroir by Nikolaj Steenfatt and Jonas Edvard Nikolaj Steenfatt...
Some partnerships just produce great things. Peanut butter and jelly. Cookies and milk. Will Bryant and Eric Trine. Their Staycation already inspired us to take a (very) long holiday, and now, we are digging the bright shapes of their Alley-Oop II collection. As a continuation of their work with Los Angeles retailer Poketo, the designers filled the gallery with improbab...
Japanese culture has taken over the world in the last few decades. Whether it is architecture, design or simply art, it is everywhere for a simple reason: it has been able to evolve quickly with time, while preserving a strong link to tradition. Looking at Hayao Miyazaki‘s movies for instance, one quickly realizes that Japanese symbolism is still very present in modern c...
As you may have noticed, our latest e-magazine has hit the virtual stands. We’re talking interiors, hotels, Scandinavian design and fabulous prefabricated houses. From the recent Pop Up House to Jean Nouvel’s prefab precursor, we selected seven noble representations of the genre. But there were many to choose from, and we couldn’t include them all, so we have created a l...
Berlin-based designers Essi Johanna Glomb and Rasa Weber are the young faces behind the design studio Blond & Bieber. Their innovative project, Algaemy, first made its appearance at DMY Berlin this past May and will be presented at the upcoming Dutch Design Week. Algae is an abundant and fast-growing material that has infinite potential. It has been studied as a replace...
Romain Guillet and Louise de Saint Angel, the Parisian duo behind STATUE, use design to reinvent objects and spaces in unexpected ways. They chose STATUE as both the name of their design studio and as their mascot due to its architectural, artistic, decorative and epic attributes. The pair often takes antiquated objects and profoundly revives them. Despite their acousti...
A staple of architecture for centuries, the facade has a long history as a decorative element of both private homes and public buildings. Facades play a clear decorative role, with new facades frequently being used to “dress up” existing houses, but they can also contribute to the energy efficiency of a building. As energy becomes a greater concern, the facade has adapt...
Mother Nature presumably did not have art in mind when creating the bright colors and patterns of our feathery friends, however feathers are natural masterpieces. They insulate against the weather, make flight possible, provide camoflage and also serve as decoration to lure potential mates. Washington artist Chris Maynard has recognized the inherent beauty of feathers an...
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...
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...
