The Mother of Invention

Yu Li, the inventor of the kitchen-in-a-case called “Assembly” and a graduate of the Royal College of Art, was inspired by the quandary of a friend who had lived in an urban industrial space for several years. Since there was no kitchen in his makeshift apartment, he survived on a portable inductive cooktop and a utility sink mounted on a cart for cleanup. Li’s heart went out to him, and as she actively helped him move into a fancier place with a proper stove and sink, her mind started churning out solutions for all the other appliance-challenged renters out there.

The Components

Li started by listing out the bare necessities of cooking, dining, and after-meal cleanup. Each component had to be portable, small, and lightweight — not to mention effortlessly capable of being returned to the main carrying case to be stowed out of sight in a closet or cabinet.

“The idea is to trim the original kitchen space down to a few minimal elements so space can be designed simpler, neater, and transformed into other purposes to increase the space utilization,” said Li.

The kitchenette’s inductive cooktop had to be ultra-thin to allow other components to fit in the carrying case too. The cooktop itself features an ignition switch, temperature controls, and a timer. Also included in the case are one stainless steel pot, one shallow stainless steel pan, a serving plate, eating utensils, and a dish drying rack. Pulling double-duty are the serving plate, which also houses a wooden cutting board, and panhandle, which can easily be transformed into a pair of serving tongs. You may have to wash the dishes and pans in an actual kitchen sink, but at least you have the luxury of a drying rack. The entire set is bright white with a cherry red trim, and that includes the coated cookware.

Alternate Scenarios

Of course, Li’s design is perfect for lots of other scenarios, too. You may have a kitchen, but if you also have multiple roommates utilizing it, you’ll be thankful to have an Assembly on hand. Don’t care for balancing campfire cookware on disintegrating hot coals at dusk whenever you want to eat in the great outdoors? Just set up your Assembly and carry on. Even a solo trip to the beach can include a delightful meal as long as you have a few ingredients, a bottle of wine, and Assembly at your side.

The Future

With any luck, Li’s design will inspire other innovations in the kitchen and help make cooking in absurdly small spaces both feasible and fun. Some culinary experts even see Assembly as a boon to preparing and consuming healthier meals, since it’ll allow so many people to stop relying on fast food and take-out.

The post This Portable Kitchenette is a Must-Have for Small Living Spaces first appeared on Dornob.

Know anyone who has ever cracked their phone screen? Yes, we thought you might. We’ve all heard horror stories of new phones falling out of pockets and onto concrete, and those tales rarely end well. The fancier the phone, the more fragile, apparently. And the replacement costs are another horror story. Where, oh where is the unbreakable iPhone case of our dreams?

Turns out, it’s this one: the Limitless iPhone Case by Mous, a stylish option with military-grade protection that will keep one of the most expensive gadgets you own from suffering a terrible accident.

“Limitless is engineered from the ground up to be a super slim case that offers maximum protection,” the designers say. “The ultra-efficient, impact-absorbing case uses Airo Shock technology to offer incredible iPhone drop protection from 45 feet.” On their website, they do share video proof of said phone surviving a fall from that height from the top of a crane. Pretty impressive, we admit!

So what is this magical Airo Shock stuff? It’s a smart, military-grade shock-absorbing material that is compact while offering superior cushioning. “Our unique patent-pending process involves injecting the material with micro crystals that turn into micro air pockets at high temperatures,” the Mous technical team says. (Not sure if it’s available for purchase as a body wrap for skiers or skaters, but we’re all over that as a future business idea.) And, even with all of its shock-absorbing material, Limitless adds less than two millimeters to the thickness of an iPhone and weighs just 42 grams, so you’d barely notice the difference.

Unlike other protective phone cases, the Limitless offers several finishes so you can match your style: there are two wood options — bamboo and walnut — or you can go for black or white marble, leather or Kevlar. It also fits all iPhones 6 and 7 models, and the thoughtful design still allows easy access to the headphone jack, charging port, speaker and microphone on both iPhones. Nice to have an accessory that can upgrade alongside your device for a change, right?






One last cool feature of the case is the embedded steel plate that you can use for magnetic mounting. One free mount is included with every pre-order, but you can also add a Flex Mount for a small additional fee. This tool lets you change the angle of your phone to suit your needs. Want to watch a video? Simply turn your Limitless case horizontal with the Flex Mount. Sun giving glare off your screen? Twist it slightly to deflect it.

The company does suspect that Limitless buyers will want more than just one magnetic mount to use around their house, so they offer the chance to get a second mount and even a second flex mount for free using their referral system. That way you can have one for charging, another for reading recipes when you’re working in the kitchen, one in the bathroom so you can listen to music while you take your shower and so on.


The Limitless phone case isn’t the Mous company’s first venture into world of phone accessories. They’ve already launched the Mous Musicase, which stores and unrolls your headphones so they are always there when you need them, minus those infuriating tangles. We will be curious to see what these designers think up next!

The post Unbreakable iPhone Case: Stylish Design, Military Grade Quality first appeared on Dornob.

Art imitates life … and sometimes furniture copies computer errors. Yes, you are seeing these images right: they depict an actual piece of carefully carved furniture, not a photo file gone wrong.

Ferruccio Laviani created this off object using CNC processes – hand-cutting such an object would be nigh on impossible. Make from oak, it looks delicate, intricate and solid, up to the points where distortion takes over and sharply (literally, so be careful!) bends and twists it an improbable angles.

From the press release: “Echoes of faraway places and Oriental elements are glimpsed in the “disorienting” design of this storage unit, which seems to have been “deformed” by a strong jolt or by swaying movements. Although it appears to depart from the aesthetics of the past, in fact it draws upon ancient knowledge in the use of carving and fine wood workmanship.”

And where does it fit within the canon of tradition and style? “The appeal of this extraordinary piece of furniture lies in its ability to overturn and question classical stylistic principles such as purity, cleanness and symmetry, while evoking a comforting feeling of deja-vù and a sort of primitiveness, matched by unquestionable craftsmanship.”

The post Reality Glitch: Digital Distortion in Physical Furniture Form first appeared on Dornob.

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In nature, the scaled mammals of the Manidae family feature a curious combination of hard and soft, firm but flexible. The applications to luggage are at once obvious and relatively untapped.

Well, here are a few examples that are outrageously unique, and made of upcycled, reclaimed waste materials to boot. You may not have thought you wanted a backpack shaped like a pangolin, but maybe you were wrong.

Recycled rubber inner tubes form the material basis for this series of backpacks, brief cases, hand bags and purses from Cyclus (and inspired by the work of the Biomimicry Institute). “By joining together layers or surfaces with a membrane, the structure, form, movement and a container space is generated.”

“The Original. Uniquely designed backpack inspired by the Pangolin animal’s biomechanics, made principally out of reused tyre inner tubes. Inspired by an armored animal, the Pangolin Backpack is the edgiest way to show off daring, urban style.”

A central axis provides a pivot point around which each rounded piece of the exterior shell can wrap and rotate, containing precious items in an impact-proof case while offering easy access to the contents.

The whole series of Pangolin products is nearly architectural in nature, not just for its substantial physicality and expressive shape, but also in the way it builds a bridge between the environment and design.

“Three years ago, in the northernmost corner of South America, a dream called Cyclus materialized. Since 2014, in the capital of Colombia, that cold but cozy Bogotá that is 2,600 meters closer to the stars, creativity was added to high quality standards, which with 100% natural and recycled materials, gave rise to comfortable bags durable and consistent with contemporary lifestyles.”

“The hands of Colombians from different regions of the country carefully make our products. Cotton and natural leather are present in each of them, in addition to the iconic recycled tire.”

The post Armadillo-Shelled Recycled Rubber Backpack first appeared on Dornob.

Manufacturing technology has finally caught up to imagination and digital rendering. These extreme sets of staircases represent unique, asymmetrical works of functional art – each is installed in an actual London home, but based on three-dimensional computer modeling and created using laser-cut materials.

If you feel a bit dizzy, just reach out for the handrail…wait, that might not work either. Everything about these designs by architect Alex Haw of Atmos is warped, bent and twisted, from the treads and risers up through the balusters and banisters.

For instance, as seen above:

“These stairs for a residential project (Sensualscaping) took us in an important new direction, harnessing digital production and fabrication to form a seamless and deeply sculptural experience. This page documents a component that we felt was rich enough in detail to merit further exploration and explanation.”

“The stair is a continuation and intensification of the simple graphic skirting board lines that trace their way through the house. As they turn the corner into the stair void, they expand like a genie released from a lamp, curling and separating and bifurcating from the wall to form the delicate edge of the stair treads, lifting into the air to rise as the veil of the balustrade. This veil hangs gently from above as a series of thin paired threads, softly pulled back at the entry to allow movement past, gently splaying around the corner to meet and carry the arriving visitor onwards & upwards.”

The white stairs and supporting elements seen above were fabricated digitally, printed in flat-pack form from MDF (with some metal accessories) then slotted back together on site – a task that would be impossibly time-consuming to try and do by hand.

More than merely a bridge between floors, each of these fluid, sculptural stairwells works as a connector between the interior and exterior of the home and supplemental seating as well as a filter for light and central decorative element – a curved accent in otherwise square spaces.

The post Incredibly Creative Stairs by Atmos Studio first appeared on Dornob.

Paula Anne Patterson is well on her way to turning a one-time (birthday present) prototype into a full line of makes for various iPad, iPhone and iPod touch models. Using Kickstarter, she is accepting pledges to help buy tools and materials. In exchange, donors are given a variety of nifty items (up to and including a V-luxe of their own and smaller items for non-iPad-but-Apple fans) for helping get this project off the ground.

In the past, Dornob has contributed to such Kickstarter projects as a mobile shopping-cart shelter and a hand-crafted yurt. In both of those cases, though, the funds went toward financing a first round – and not to someone who this editor has watched first-hand toil over every last design detail from concept to execution.

In this instance, too, the stakes are a bit higher as Paula heads into the second stage of production- and since this forms the basis of her larger endeavor: BKNY design. So, if you are game to give a little this holiday season (and perhaps get something back), go ahead and lend her a hand!

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We have all seen it in movies: those wonderful antique furniture items that are no longer for sale in the modern age, from clunky treasure-trunk style cases to sturdy hand-held suitcases. While the price tag may be prohibitive, this remade case brings a classic back to life.

In a way, this traveling case for carrying make-up and accessories (and that transforms into a dressing table complete with a mirror and drawers) is still a wonderful innovation, combining portability with in-place usability in a way few cases do these days.

While it is likely too fragile for air travel, if you ever do find yourself on an antique ocean-liner or a classic cross-country African safari you might actually discover that such a thing comes in handy.

The post Retro Make-Up Trunk and Mobile Dressing Table first appeared on Dornob.