When interior design firm Commune set out to create a warm, welcoming atmosphere for a gluten-free bakery in Los Angeles, they channeled the versatility of the stuff: its capacity to act as a vessel for other flavors or stand as a simple pleasure in its own right. The result conjures all of the right sensory aspects of one of humankind’s most basic and beloved foods for a space that’s simultaneously chic and down to earth.

Breadblok began as a farm stand (also designed by Commune), drawing in hungry customers with a streamlined wooden frame wrapped in natural canvas. As it transitioned to its first brick and mortar store, the bakery wanted to maintain this essential aesthetic and its inherent Instagram-friendly nature, expanding it to develop a more well-rounded identity.

“For Breadblok, we wanted to celebrate our client’s roots in the south of France, but for the space to feel unmistakably Californian,” Commune’s Roman Alonso tells Wallpaper. “I feel we were particularly successful in doing that through the juxtaposition of certain materials like the plaster walls and rough travertine counter, reminiscent of buildings in Provence, with the Saltillo tile floor, which has a strong connection to LA’s Spanish Colonial past. Ultimately, Breadblok creates a high-quality artisan product and the space needed to communicate that in a nuanced way.”

Whether it’s intentional or not, the bakery’s name sounds like a reference to the importance of bread in cuisines around the world for practically all of human history. It’s only fitting that the designers would use materials found among the most essential building blocks of our architectural history, too. The terracotta floors root the space in a feeling of warmth, while the stone pedestals holding up the counters grant a sense of solidity.

Various tones of wood, metallic copper accents, and tinted glass let the loaves of bread being displayed on the back wall shine, while the handwoven rope baskets by local artist Dax Savage, which themselves have been transformed into pendant lighting, are another callback to the original farm stand.

Does this bakery design make you hungry for some fresh-baked bread or what? If you don’t live in the Los Angeles area to experience Breadblok yourself, now’s probably a great time to experiment with some bread making of your own, whether wheat based or gluten-free.

The firm describes itself as a “Los Angeles-based design studio with a reputation for holistic work across the fields of architecture, interior, graphic, and product design. The firm has designed residential, commercial, and hospitality projects worldwide, a wide array of home and lifestyle products, as well as graphic and branding concepts for the fashion, arts, and entertainment industries. The studio values the strength of the collective mind, believing that authentic creativity and innovation come from collaboration. The true virtuosity of their work comes from their collaborations with their clients, as well as with other members of the community.”

The post LA Bakery Design Takes Inspiration from the Simplicity of Bread first appeared on Dornob.

Nowadays, we tend to rely quite heavily on the use of technology, which itself is unquestionably making our lives much easier when it comes to performing everyday tasks. But is it also making us lazier? Are we steering away from our initial hopes for and ideas of quality?

“Preparing and cooking food symbolizes one of the turning points of human evolution, when man became a social and cultural being,” explained the Tel Aviv-based designer. “Nowadays in the kitchen, the modern cook surrounds themselves with advanced technologies, utensils, and products — requiring minimal effort and no processing — providing immediate results.” The objective is to encourage users to appreciate the ancient and early cooking processes that began this evolution.

Drawing a connection between the old techniques and our modern ones, Shem Tov’s designs focus on the relationship between man and machine, in terms of both the interaction and the final result. For this collection, she wanted the designs to require more physical work during food preparation so that they could more accurately mimic the amount of effort and time it took our ancestors to produce the same or similar meals. She studied the history of said utensils from antiquity all the way up to present day, highlighting the products that she felt best represented the basic actions required to make the food.

Shem Tov ended up with three key products: a millstone for grinding wheat and grains, a mortar and pestle for grinding and milling herbs and spices, and hot stones for warming, cooking, and baking. All of the utensils were carved from raw Yarka stone via sandblasting. Collated from the northern regions of Israel, this natural hard stone is coveted for its texture and ability to preserve color over a long period of time. The Roots millstone design is the same as its primitive counterpart when it comes to functionality, though it can be customized to adhere to the requirements of the modern user. Comprised of two stones (one that rotates on top of the other), it can be tightened or loosened as necessary to adjust the grain thickness.

“The main idea was to look at the [cooking] process not as a constraint but as an experience with progressive stages,” she explains, “as a process that takes time and personal involvement until you reach the end of it.”

The mortar and pestle were designed to replicate their ancient counterpart quite simply, merely consisting of a stone surface and a pebble. The stones, on the other hand, are to be heated in the oven and placed on an external surface once they’ve reached an appropriate temperature for cooking, baking, and warming food. Shem Tov explains that she wanted to bring the idea of fire into the modern kitchen by designing these. Two handles are attached to the stones so that they can be arranged in a pyramid shape when baking thinner bread. Similarly, they can also be opened out flat to preserve the food’s temperature.

The post Ancient Cooking Utensils Reimagined for the Modern Kitchen first appeared on Dornob.

Pastries and other mold-made goods are a phenomena the world over, taking form differently from one country or culture to the next – in this case, it is the shape of familiar objects that bridges culinary boundaries, whatever folks may cook up in these machines.

Designed to be a Sapore dei Mobili (Taste of Furniture), the device lets “you can create your eatable living room and paint your furniture cakes with your favorite jams and toppings,”

And what about the temporary nature of these creations? “In this way when the user gets full of his furniture he just eats it without creating disposals. And start all over again with a different recipe.”

The post Edible Doll Furniture: Mini Pastry Chairs & Tiny Cake Tables first appeared on Dornob.