With evidence mounting that sitting for hours on end is doing us a heap of wrong, it’s little wonder that industrial designers are putting efforts towards healthier working alternatives. Don Chadwick, the man responsible for Herman Miller’s ubiquitous Aeron Chair, has one answer in the Ballo stool, a stool made — Continue reading
If it’s at all possible for an 800 square-foot house to seem decadent, then Frey House II, one of two homes that the Swiss-born architect Albert Frey designed for himself in Palm Springs, California, shows us why. Situated amidst the San Jacinto mountain range that overlooks the desert resort, Frey’s — Continue reading
Even novice gardeners have big dreams, and Edyn, a new gardening system, promises big things to weekend gardeners and expert growers, alike. A two-component system—a sensor which, when ‘planted’ in garden bed, monitors soil conditions and transmits the data via a smart phone app; and a solar-powered valve which automatically — Continue reading
Seeing is believing with our Judy Ross Textiles collection, which features the kind of richly detailed stitching, uncommon in contemporary design, that should be viewed at close range. Meticulously hand-embroidered in New Zealand wool, expressed in vivid hues and graphic patterns, our Judy Ross Textiles are an ideal blend of — Continue reading
New materials may come and go with the times, but wood never loses its allure. Just ask Spanish lighting company LZF, whose ravishing pendant lights exemplify some of the most innovative contemporary applications of wood anywhere. And, as if to reinforce their faith in wood, LZF not long ago launched — Continue reading
Barcelona toy company Mitoi, founded by designer Marc Castelló, has a pair of building block sets which eschew the generic “wooden blocks without meaning” for a collection of blocks that can be fashioned into famous architectural landmarks. With Mitoi’s chunky birch wood blocks, kids can construct simple, stylized, but instantly — Continue reading
Channeling the tropics may be as simple as a these luxury cushions from British fashion label Silken Favours. The brand’s colorful signature prints, based on pen and ink illustrations by founder Victoria Murdoch, have been applied to a suite of cushions, some featuring tropical foliage and birds, and others taking — Continue reading
When life gives you lemons…. With ongoing bad news related to sugary drinks, and its undeniable complicity in the proliferation of plastic waste, the Coca Cola company may be forgiven for feeling a bit persecuted of late. But, give them credit for trying to generate some good eco-centric press for — Continue reading
Managing to pay tribute to an ancient Japanese tradition, Venetian artisans, and the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian all at once, Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto has designed a sublime structure that’s grabbing headlines at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. Sugimoto’s Glass Tea House Mondrian Pavillion, a temporary installation that includes a meticulously — Continue reading
Carl Hansen & Søn have just released the CH88 Chair, a 1955 prototype design by Hans J. Wegner that had never previously been put into production. In observing Wegner’s 100th birthday, the danish manufacturer, whose recent observances of Wegner milestones have included handsome collaborations with fashion designer Paul Smith and — Continue reading
Attempting to make Google Glass cool may or may not be a worthwhile endeavor, but kudos to Google for giving it a few serious tries. Its latest attempt at giving the device fashion cache rests on the shoulders of legendary fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, who has lent her famous — Continue reading
A newly restored Victorian house in London has been given a fairly musical remake in which the floors take center stage. In gut-renovating the four floors of the terrace house into a hotel for guests of a recording company, London based architects Alma-nac took inspiration from the music-related art work — Continue reading
Calling it a sofa with a “split personality,” Gus* has introduced the fanciful Switch Sofa, a seating statement which features quilted seat and back cushions with a different stitching pattern on each side. The Switch Sofa’s clean, graphic shape and solid wood feet are standard Gus fare, but the reversible — Continue reading
Buckminster Fuller may not have had a backyard respite in mind when he invented the geodesic dome, but we can assume he’d be plenty tickled by Garden Igloo, a German-made structure that echoes Fuller’s dome design for a versatile, easy to assemble, and visually beguiling year-round room. Comprised of a — Continue reading
Swedish design studio Form Us With Love, well known for its product design (we reported on their nifty hexagon-shaped cement boards here), has ventured into the 2-D design arena with a series of limited edition prints made in collaboration with philanthropic Danish print studio Paper Collective. Calling it “a new — Continue reading
Giving a gracious old Italian home a memorable modernist extension is no easy task, but the Treviso, Italy architectural practice, Zanon Architetti Associati, had no problem with it, thank you. The owners’ desire to expand their country home’s living space without fracturing the esthetic integrity of the original structure was — Continue reading
Everyone knows that Magis has a particular way with color, of course, but our current Magis sale will have you taking a shine to metallics. The best-selling Chair One, by Konstantin Grcic, is a shining example, its cut-out geometric form and cutting-edge technology rendered more futuristic in gleaming aluminum; while — Continue reading
The great graphic designer Massimo Vignelli died this week, leaving an incomparable body of work that included iconic subway signage, a calendar that remains timeless, coffee mugs, department store visual identities, and furniture for Knoll and Heller—an oeuvre that continues to beguile first-year students and the design cognoscenti with equal — Continue reading
The challenge of reinterpreting a tried and true design lies in offering up something original, and Brooklyn-based, Mexican multi-disciplinary design studio NODO has done just that with their version of the winsome Acapulco Chair. A bohemian-happy patio chair that emerged in the 50s in the Mexican resort city after which — Continue reading
At the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) this month, Mid-Century design buffs familiar with the many variations of Sputnik—the starburst-like pendant light that came of age during America’s Space Race—will have stopped at least twice to view the lighting models presented by Avram Rusu Studio. The New York design studio, — Continue reading
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