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I can't stop staring at these picture of framed windows on a housing project designed by Stockholm architects Wilhelmson Arkitekter. The houses lord over the sea in Helsingborg, Sweden, and Denmark can be seen on the horizon. I love how surreal and opulent it all is.
Read more about it here.
Designed by Lena Nordqvist, the Design House Stockholm's Family Chairs recently won the Accent on Design Award for “Excellence in Product Design” during their official debut at the New York International Gift Fair.
"Family Chairs is a foursome of traditional Swedish stickback chairs. Separately they present themselves as individual unique chairs aspiring to be something more than just pieces of furniture. Together they form a boisterous family, with each one displaying a distinctive character. Even the horizontal spindles between the chair legs play an integral part in the design’s individuality."
2008 was the Brazilian year in France, and 2009 is the French year in Brazil. To celebrate this amazing partner/friendship, Museu da Casa Brasileira (Brazilian Home Museum), in São Paulo, put together an exhibition with the best of design in both countries in the twentieth century.
Each country presents 22 products, and the exhibition is open until the 20th of September.
Via limonada-biz. You can get more information here.
I am jealous of Zoë Mowat for several reasons. Here are just a few...
She is not afraid of color.
or material.
Oh. And of course has created a beautiful line of work that is wonderfully nostalgic (for the child in all of us).
"Zoë Mowat works as a freelance designer in Montreal, Quebec. Zoë’s work explores unique combinations of colour, material, and form, while continually questioning the value of objects and what it means to have them. Zoë has exhibited her work across Canada, in the US and Europe."
As you can see, design does not always been related to luxury. Sometimes with things that many people has considered as garbage, a designer thinks the opposite: This things are extraordinary materials!. Here, for example, I show you three examples of chairs, all of them made by recycled pieces from the beverage industry.
First, we got the SIE43 Chair by Pawel Grunert. The chair is made from PET bottles with a stainless steel frame. The bottles can be easily changed if they show signs of damage. It was exhibited at the Colombari Gallery in Milan, Italy. More pictures and details of this chair can be found on Contemporist.
With light on it, I think this chair is very cool. I imagine it can work on the lounge of a discotheque, don't you think? Let's have a drink seating on this bottle chair. Sound great for me.
Here we have a very interesting design proposal. It's made with a lot of drinking straws, 10.000 to be precise. A design by Scott Jarvie, who had his inspiration on the xylem of the trees. I found "The Clutch Chair" on Design Milk.
I would like to test this chair on a pool... What do you think, it floats or it sinks?
What to do with all of those corks that bottles of wine and champagne includes?. Let´s make a confortable seat! That's probably thought Gabriel Wiese, the designer of this original cork chair. It seems to be very warm and flexible, just for a relaxed posture on a rustic ambient. Don't know you, but I think this design is perfect for a cabin, with a fire place.
If you want to see more examples of recycle chairs, check this link.
1.6 million Buprestidae shells were glued to the ceiling of the Royal Palace in Brussels. The project is by artist Jan Fabre and his team of 30 beetle-gluers.
The jewel beetles were obtained from universities and connections Fabre had in the open market. They are a non-protected species that are abundant in certain countries like Thailand where the beetle is fried and eaten. It took four months to complete.
Jan Fabre on his creation:
As far as the ceiling is concerned, I first created a wide variety of forms and patterns by gluing beetles onto small surfaces. Then I told my 29 assistants that they could start inventing forms, knowing full well what they would come up with. This process allowed me to discover who was good at what type of pattern. Once I had this information, I could assign different areas of the ceiling to different assistants.
Check out more of his work here
I love this. Click here to see this and other nifty products from Jessica Nebel Design.
Did I mention design? I love this one by Paul Cohen called The Igloo. The EcoSmart Igloo is designed with a futuristic appeal to enhance any contemporary décor. Toughened glass surrounds and suspends a stainless steel bench from which springs the flame.
Have an infinitely modern day!
As part of the Burnham Plan Centennial celebrations, Zaha Hadid Architects designed one of the two Burnham Pavilions. The Burnham Plan Centennial is all about celebrating the bold plans and big dreams of Daniel Burnham’s visionary Plan of Chicago. It’s about reinvention and improvement on an urban scale and about welcoming the future with innovative ideas and technologies. The design merges new formal concepts with the memory of Burnham’s bold, historic urban planning.
The pavilion is composed of an intricate curved aluminum structure, with each element shaped and welded in order to create its unique fluid form. Fabric skins have been tightly zipped around the metal frame to create the curvilinear shape. The interior skin also serves as the screen for a video installation by Thomas Gray that explores Chicago’s past and future.
“Fabric is both a traditional and a high-tech material whose form is directly related to the forces applied to it - creating beautiful geometries that are never arbitrary. I find this very exciting.” - Hadid.
The Burnham Pavilions will be open and free to the public in Millennium Park now through October 31, 2009. More details here.
