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Lagerkvist and Lindgren’s design process involved researching the therapeutic benefits of nature to determine what people find most calming and relaxing. The designers believe the allure of stone lies in its symbolism, representing “nature’s slow and boundless rhythm.” When translated into malleable materials, those same qualities can feel like the reassuring embrace of Mother Nature herself.

The designers wanted “Pebble Rubble” to transcend the functions and qualities of an ordinary seat, reminding the user to slow down and appreciate the resilience and dependability of the natural world. The shapes of the rocks call to mind the process by which all the jagged edges were polished over long periods of time by the rain and wind, perhaps cloaked by a coating of moss or a layer of fallen leaves.

“Imagine we find ourselves upon a massive, mysterious slab of stone,” say Lagerkvist and Lindgren. “As if, in a time long before our own, someone gifted with superhuman strength lifted and positioned it, creating a megalithic seat. Let’s imagine that all this occurs in an unexpected location – in the entrance of a bank, the lounge of a hotel, or in the halls of a library. Lastly, let’s imagine that we are getting closer to its surface and only then becoming aware of their softness.”

“Our new system of furniture for Moroso took its forms from found shapes in nature. As children in our native Sweden, our playground was the forest, and we imagined rocks, moss, and fallen trees to be furniture and places for the body to rest and occupy. For this seating group, we 3D scanned rocks we saw on our many forest walks, and composed these organic shapes together into furniture pieces.”

Designed for Italian furniture brand Moroso, the modular cushions of the Pebble Rubble sofas come in 15 different shapes and sizes, and a range of colors including beige, gray, brown, green, lavender, and orange. Each one is available in 16 new textiles produced by Kvadrat by digitally scanning natural surfaces like moss, minerals, and snow for a realistically organic effect.

You can custom-order your preferred combination to create oversized river rock vignettes that fit your space, choosing from shapes that can act as base cushions, back support cushions, throw pillows, and stools.

The Pebble Rubble collection was produced with the hospitality and corporate sectors in mind, but it’s easy to imagine them in the home, too. You can purchase them online from shops like Mohd Furniture, with prices available upon request.

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For Mustardo, these fleshy ceramics offer a chance to play with ancient forms, infusing them with the characteristics of human bodies. The sculptor’s series “Anthropophorae,” “Toroid,” “Mug,” “Pitcher,” and “Flablet” make objects traditionally seen as hard and solid appear as soft and mutable as unbaked bread dough. Flablets and “Logoliths” are both puns on the clay tablet, “referencing the form and function of those great, antiquated, and often fragmented recording devices to examine certain mechanisms of visual language.” Their forms droop and dimple, looking like you could poke them with your finger and leave a mark.

The Toroid series starts with a torus (donut) shape, bulging and distorting it in a variety of hues and textures. Mustardo first began using toroids to test glazes in his studio, but soon became enamored with the simple form itself. During a residency in Rome, he closely observed Baroque architectural ornamentation of amphorae and krater with ribbed undersides known as “gadrooning.” Applying this technique to the entire shape, he stretches them into gourd-like sculptures, referencing the early days of humanity when actual hollowed-out gourds were used in place of the pottery that would soon be invented and mastered.

The Mug and Pitcher series take shapes we’re all familiar with and make them strange, abstracted, almost like objects that have been dropped deep into the sea to be encrusted with salt and barnacles. Anthropophorae is perhaps the most striking of all, inspired by the Ancient Greek and Roman amphora jar with two handles and a narrow neck. Exaggerating their roundedness and giving them human-like poses suddenly creates a sense of sensuality that didn’t really exist in these objects before.

Much of Mustardo’s work revolves around “broad, reverential notions of the vessel, the body, and language,” as he explains, animating the inanimate and perhaps making them more appealing to self-obsessed humans in the process. The objects are pushed and pulled, concave and convex, humorous and serious. When he covers them in a shimmering PVC coating for them a stippled, warty appearance, they become even more surreal. Some are finished with a contrasting coat of glaze for an eerie glow.

“Attempts are made to continually dissect processes, revisit forms, and reframe themes to agitate evolution and antagonize static thinking,” Mustardo says. “Objects are focused upon as vital witnesses and participants, reflections and poems, animate and imagined.”

The post Maxwell Mustardo’s Whimsical Ceramics Aren’t Afraid to Get Weird first appeared on Dornob.

Designed by Dutch architect Koen Olthuis, the SeaPod is supposed to represent a new way of living in harmony with coastal ecosystems. Ultra-minimalist and nearly all-white, the unusual home features 830 square feet of living space spread across three levels, including a bedroom, kitchen, living room, bathroom, and storage areas. It’s perched on a 7.5-foot-high pillar connected to a floating base hidden beneath the surface of the water. This stabilizing base uses more than 1,688 cubic feet of air-filled tubes to stay afloat. To get to and from the home or order supplies, occupants wear a smart ring that summons a vehicle or a food delivery drone. Prices range from $295,000 for the smallest and most basic pods up to $1.5 million.

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The idea behind the SeaPod is to unlock the ocean as a new frontier offering a high quality of life. In contrast with “green technology,” which usually refers to sustainability, Ocean Builders calls its philosophy “blue technology,” turning rising sea levels into a positive by working with the oceans instead of against them. The design of the SeaPod is based on the forms and materials of sea shells, which the company cites as beautiful, organically shaped, and naturally strong.

Ocean Builders CEO Grant Romundt says: “Every day, thousands of people all over the world move closer to the top 15 major metropolitan cities which are within 50 miles of a coastline—a trend that will continue to grow… We’ve been motivated by the opportunity to change and challenge the traditional real estate and tourism models and create first-in-class living experiences that can give back to our ocean environment.”

If all of that sounds a little too futuristic to work, the failure of the launch event might seem like a sign that this technology isn’t quite ready for prime time. Ocean Builders says the embarrassing incident was caused by a bilge pump malfunction that affected the balance of a steel spar in the prototype and caused it to flood. They insist that there was no damage, and in a statement to Autoevolution, a spokesperson for the company says “Like all innovation and new technology, there is a likelihood of trial and error, and that provides an opportunity to learn, improve, and continue to innovate on ocean technology.”

Every innovation has its stops and starts along the way, and an incident like this isn’t necessarily indicative of failure. But one interesting thing to note is that the prototype is so visually different from the company’s renderings. What was revealed in Panama last month looks more like a standard marine lookout tower than a sexy futuristic floating home, raising the question, once again, of whether this launch was just a tad rushed.

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Jamais Content is a unique architectural room divider solution created by Atelier Marc Ferrand and produced by Italian furniture company Bottega Ghianda. The modular system is, first and foremost, a functional bookcase with large open square-shaped shelves. But it’s also the foundation for building your own rooms-within-rooms — even rounded ones. That’s the coolest part of this kit of parts. You can assemble them to create organically shaped spaces in your desired proportions and forms.

The modular bookcase is made of individual pieces of citronnier, a type of wood sourced from Ceylon Island, along with a satin-finished brass “cross” element that acts as a decorative fastener. Small brass bolts connect the wooden elements to the crosses and to each other for stability. The wood shelves come in two different sizes, and a leather door is available as an optional add-on to create “a fascinating interplay of solids and voids.” The process is meant to be experimental. If you build something and don’t like it, or your needs change, just start over. The name, Jamais Content, translates to “never satisfied” in English.

The possibilities of this system seem virtually endless. Sure, you could create linear installations, much like you would with any other modular bookcase or room divider system, but the ability to produce rounded rooms is just too fun to resist. Imagine creating a little rounded office, reading room, meditation space, or study area for kids within your living room. As Ferrand explains, Jamais Content is architecture, enveloping and protecting like any other shelter.

Rendered in sophisticated materials with a focus on fine craftsmanship, Jamais Content is definitely a step up (okay, quite a few steps up) from IKEA. Based near Lake Como in Italy, Bottega Ghianda is a leader in Italian cabinetmaking known for its expertise with wood. That 200-year-old reputation shines through in this piece.

About Atelier Marc Ferrand

As the designer’s website explains: “The work of Marc Ferrand, nourished by minimalist forms, is characterized by a reflection on the temporal nature of matter and its relationship to architecture, creating a design that evolves with time and each imagination. A designer who graduated from the École Bleue (Paris, 2006), Marc Ferrand became the same year a collaborator with the Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, for whom he was responsible for the design of nomadic and temporary architectures.”

“In this capacity, he was notably in charge of the Hermès Pavilion in Milan, the Shiseido Pavilion for the Venice Biennale of Arts, and the Paper Tower for the London Design Festival. Atelier Marc Ferrand develops industrial design projects with international publishers, designs reconstruction projects, and pursues research on forms and their relationship to the body and architecture.”

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Located in a field outside Stockholm, One Tree Four Seasons is a collaboration between Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) and Finnish artist Antti Laitinen. The project encircles a solitary alder tree set on a small hill with a giant nest-like structure, which will be periodically modified to represent the four seasons. The team uses only natural materials they can find in the immediate area to build the installation, making the results seem almost like a natural growth upon the tree.

The first part was completed earlier this year and unveiled in May, displaying the starkness of the leafless tree in the cold winter and early spring seasons. The tree was already surrounded by rocks, thanks to an old agricultural practice involving clearing obstacles from the adjacent fields. The team gathered dead branches and wove them together to form a circular nest that’s open at the top, with a huge round window looking out. Curious passersby will no doubt see the structure and the opening and approach out of curiosity, perhaps climbing inside to discover that the floor is also woven.

In August, the creative team revealed Season II. This time, a new natural material was available for them to work with: hay cut and collected from the fields. Not only did they pack the hay into the woven branch structure to give it more solidity, they crafted it into a slightly curving upper wall that focuses a tight view on the canopy of the tree overhead.

They also integrated a circular hay bench lining the perimeter. Stacked bales became temporary stairs outside the entrance. As such, this enormous nest became an organic concert space. Local string quartet Julikvartetten was invited to conduct a performance inside, playing not to an audience of humans but to the tree itself, and any wildlife that might be nearby. Season III will be underway shortly, and one imagines that it will include some fall leaves, or perhaps corn stalks or other agricultural byproducts from the scene.

The fact that the work looks like a nest calls to mind the architectural works of certain animals and insects, from termite mounds to beaver dams. Structures built by animals can be quite elaborate, blurring the lines between nature and art. Projects like One Tree Four Seasons remind us that we too are animals. Plus, there’s a very particular sense of comfort that comes from building architecture that works with nature instead of against it.

The post Living Tree Converted into a Nest-Like Concert Space in Rural Sweden first appeared on Dornob.

Restaurant owner and chef Motonori Hirata was looking for something brand new that felt long-established. “I was asked to design a building as ‘heavy’ as possible,” says Ishigami. “’I want an architecture whose heaviness would increase with time,’ [Hirata] said. ‘It cannot be artificially smooth but rather something with the roughness of nature. Authentic cuisines require such a place.’ He also told me that ‘it has to look as if it has been there and will continue to be there for the longest time.’”

Creating such a structure in the middle of a modern residential neighborhood presented plenty of challenges. Instead of focusing on what he currently had to work with, Ishigami took a subtractive approach, concentrating on what he could have if he removed parts of the existing space.

That line of thinking resulted in an underground cave dwelling that’s every bit as organic and “heavy” as it is practical and functional. Ishigami began with a design that would leave the roof of the new building flush with the ground level. Using state-of-the-art 3D software, he was able to determine the exact points for pile driving. When construction began, workers “dug the holes manually for precision while constantly confirming the position and shape on an iPad.”

Once all the holes were hollowed out, concrete was poured in to create the form of the organically-shaped columns. Then the rest of the space was excavated to create the living and working areas.

Ishigami tried to embrace accidents as they popped up, working the unknown into the process. “Unexpected factors such as growing grass, soil collapsing, or errors due to manual labor were tolerated as much as possible,” he notes. He hoped that the by accepting these “un-precisions,” he would create an architecture that “internalizes natural distortions and uncertainties.”

The original plans called for washing away all the dirt to reveal a gray concrete structure, but Ishigami and his team were so impressed with they way the soil-caked columns looked that they chose to leave them as-is. That decision is what gave the project its cave-like feel and inspired a redesign of the interior spaces, which now include a bedroom, bathroom, industrial kitchen space, and three courtyards that can be filled with dining tables during restaurant hours (or used as living spaces at other times).

Almost imperceptible glass creates walls around the structure to keep it warm and safe from the elements. The flat roof was filled in with concrete except for three skylights, and whitewashed to keep it distinctive from the surrounding topography.

Considered a design wunderkind in architecture circles, Ishimgami started his career with Kazuyo Sejima at SANAA, after graduating with a Master’s in Architecture and Planning from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 2000. In 2004 he started his own firm, junya.ishigami+associates, and has since gone on to win multiple awards, including becoming the youngest-ever recipient of the Architectural Institute of Japan Prize in 2009 for his ultra-thin glass Kanagawa Institute of Technology workshop. In addition to his architectural work, Ishigami also serves as the Kenzo Tange Design Critic at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

The post Junya Ishigami Crafts Cave-Like House and Restaurant in Japan first appeared on Dornob.

The aptly named “Soft Cylinders” series includes chairs, stools. and tables made of steel and foam upholstered in wool and silk. The designer wanted the collection to feel sculptural yet organic and supportive, like a warm embrace. He envisions their shapes as squiggly lines traversing the proportions that a more conventional piece of furniture would occupy. In place of a squared-off armchair, for instance, is a single cylindrical line curling around itself within that space.

The designer says he asked himself, “What’s the most efficient way for a cylinder to become a chair?” Perhaps most people would say the answer is simple: a single upright cylinder, wide enough to sit on. But that would be boring. Thorose’s solution is far more poetic than that, and certainly more entertaining to look at. Whether you find them truly comfortable might be another story.

“Essentially, I take a line and subvert it,” Thorose told Surface. “It’s the product of explorations in material, form, and movement — the feeling of mechanical movement versus body movement. I started with a CNC-style movement, let it slip into curious lilt, and then pull it back. There’s an inhale-exhale of control, release, and then control. The dead precision of the mechanical sets a context for imprecision to feel alive.”

He adds: “I think of each form as a phrase written in body language. It’s choreography set to form. I use cylinders that are approximately the circumference of an adult human thigh, so there’s something sympathetic but still abstract about the forms.”

Thorose measured his own thigh to come up with the base shape. Steel tubing holds the forms steady, and polyurethane foam gives them an almost fleshy feel. Within the Soft Cylinders ULU collection, forms upholstered in silk have a slight sheen that catches the light, while those covered in wool feel textural and substantial. Other iterations of the concept include BOYD Works, a 2022 collection made of latex, PVC rubber, glass, and neoprene for an edgier look. BOYD, in this case, is an anagram for “body.”

The fluted NUN chairs (green and black) have a minimal bench-like seat and a slightly higher curve in the back to perch the tailbone in an upright position. UN is a transparent gold “furniture-type object” functioning as an ottoman or stool, and is made of aged industrial rubber tubing. The gray and mauve 5M chairs are composed of four movements of a bending cylinder, and the ULU XT1 table features black neoprene curves supporting a glass box surface.

BOYD Works was recently shown at NADA NY by Carvalho Park (images by Se Yoon Park). Contact the designer for pricing.

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Commissioned by artisan café brand Colicci, architecture firm Mizzi Studio took inspiration from the verdant foliage of the Royal Parks, giving the kiosks a vaguely tree-like structure complete with curves and canopies.

This mimicry and appreciation of local environment are a common strategy for the studio. “We call our work ‘bio-architecture,’ said company founder Jonathan Mizzi in an interview with Architizer. This approach “characterize[s] our studio ethos, a philosophy that rests on bringing humans and nature closer together through thoughtful and innovative design solutions.”

“The architecture and design industry has seen a massive shift in practice towards trends that favor a nature-led approach,” he added. “Mizzi Studio has been focused on this philosophy since day one of our foundation. Our architecture holds the natural world as its greatest teacher and inspiration — this ethos is central to The Royal Parks project.”

The team started by spending months exploring the heritage of each park. After channeling “all of that research into a design strategy…driven by nature and the variety of tactile experiences it offers” (the firm’s own words), Mizzi Studio invented a fleet of kiosks, each “unique, tailored to the history, nuances, and demographics of its respective site within the parks.”

While each kiosk has a slightly different 360-degree organic profile and volume, they all share a tree-based sculptural outline, and an instantly recognizable silhouette from far away.

Set conspicuously at the entrances to Hyde Park, Green Park, and St. James’s Park, eight of the nine kiosks are covered in “steam-bent” wooden English oak timber, a sustainably sourced material, in addition to the stainless steel and copper used in the frames.

The ninth iteration — the flagship Horse Shoe Bend kiosk in St. James’s Park — got the royal treatment as it sits at the base of Buckingham Palace. While the shape follows the patterns of its siblings, this “kiosk is clad in tubular brass, mirroring the ornate precious metals of the nearby Sir Thomas Brock’s Queen Victoria Memorial,” Mizzi explains.

Each kiosk was constructed with the lowest impact to the environment in mind. Modular in design, all are freestanding and able to be transported in just two truckloads, cutting down on carbon emissions.

The timing of the kiosk project — on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic — made it especially impactful for visitors. “Aside from the spectacular landscape of the Parks, which directly influenced the design of the kiosks — our hope was that the fleet would stand as a new architectural structure and symbol of collective respite,” Mizzi says. “We believe in the power of public space to bring people together and restore them both physically and emotionally. The aftermath of the pandemic became the context for the completion of the Royal Parks fleet, and therefore we saw this as a moment where architecture could help restore mental well-being, bring people together, and offer surveillance and support at a time when the city’s inhabitants felt most vulnerable.”

The post London’s Royal Parks Kiosks Get Sustainable “Bio-Architecture” Update first appeared on Dornob.

When machines can produce stunning masterpieces that mimic a human’s signature style, that artist’s work can suddenly seem less valuable. But a recent project by Manas Bhatia shows us one way in which artificial intelligence could enhance our creativity instead of replacing it. Envisioning what organic architecture of the future could look like, “Symbiotic Architecture” breaks through our understanding of what’s actually possible and asks us to think about our built environment a little differently.

Bhatia, an architectural designer based in India, uses the AI art generator Midjourney as a tool to overcome his own conscious and subconscious assumptions. He’s particularly interested in finding sustainable solutions that are able to withstand climate change by acting more like natural structures than artificial environments. For Symbiotic Architecture, he asked the program to combine an apartment building with Hyperion, a towering 380-foot redwood in California that’s considered the world’s tallest-known living tree. He entered combinations of words like “giant,” “hollowed,” “tree,” “stairs,” and “facade,” continuing to alter the prompts until he got the results he wanted.

The final digital works of art produced by the program are nothing less than stunning, even if they seem completely impossible in the real world. Massive coastal redwoods the size of Hyperion and even larger are pierced with glass-clad dwelling units stacked on top of each other. Little sprouts of leaves pop up here and there between windows and balconies. The images give us an idea of what the world might look like if human dwellings were more like those of ants and other creatures that build their homes from the world around them. The idea is that the structures we live in breathe and potentially even grow as a part of nature instead of attempting to be separate from it.

Would we really want to insert architecture into existing groves of sensitive, slow-growing, and endangered redwoods? Definitely not, but that’s not really the point. Just because our existing construction methods, materials, and technologies aren’t capable of producing safe and durable buildings that look like this doesn’t mean we can’t develop new ones that can. Working backwards from fantastical ideas could produce amazing innovations that allow us to burst out of our minimalist architectural stagnancy. For instance, it’s not that hard to imagine something like a naturally reproducing fungus-based material growing to a desired shape and size around a framework of modular living pods with an appearance resembling these giant inhabitable trees.

“The project began as an AI-based investigation into the interactions we have all had with nature, such as appreciating a tree’s shade on a hot day, reading a newspaper in a courtyard under a tree, or simply hanging out in a park to take in the changing hues of the leaves,” Bhatia explains. “Building on these observations came the idea of a ‘utopian future’ in which buildings are not machines made of steel or concrete…Instead, the structure is alive and has the ability to grow and breathe.”

The post Symbiotic Architecture: Artificial Intelligence Envisions Living Housing Built into Redwood Trees first appeared on Dornob.

Recently, a new contender has stepped onto the scene, eager to make its mark and find a place in the pantheon of evergreen design trends. But what exactly is organic brutalism?

Though it’s been gaining a lot of steam lately, brutalism has been around for decades, first making a splash post-WWII with its strong geometric shapes and use of raw materials like concrete, metal, and wood. Organic brutalism takes a softer approach, eschewing dramatic metals and clunky concrete in favor of deep woods and timeless, textured feels.

Don’t Be a Square

One of the cornerstones of organic brutalism is a reliance on bold, geometric shapes that catch the eye and make an immediate statement. A deep wood palette is ideal for these pieces, as the raw texture marries the organic wood with the sharp brutalist shapes for a match made in heaven (as seen in the 1970s credenza above).

Monolithic Marvels

It’s not just the textures of classic brutalism being redefined — the forms are also changing. Blocky silhouettes and monolithic shapes make a visual impact with their boldness, while the imperfectly perfect wood adds depth and warmth to the spaces they inhabit. And “blocky” doesn’t have to be a negative word — those with an appreciative eye for organic brutalism may want to try giving the trend a raw, unfinished twist, as seen in these curvy stools whose added charm is enhanced by their bulky design.

Setting the Scene

A little goes a long way with organic brutalism, and a neutral color palette is the best way to highlight the trend’s more dramatic forms. You can also incorporate textiles to soften the look. You can’t go wrong with subtle metal touches, neutral-toned fabrics, and a couple small splashes of color.

Brutalism is back and softer than ever, relying more heavily on natural materials like heavily-textured wood to make a big statement. While classic brutalism leans into a more industrial feel with sharper edges and angles, organic brutalism adds depth, warmth, and life to the mix. The result is a trend that’s sure to make a welcome addition to any 21st-century home.

Images sourced from Style by Emily Henderson

The post Is Organic Brutalism the Next Big Design Trend? first appeared on Dornob.

The poetic vision of Studio noa* treats the library like a modern Garden of Eden wherein knowledge may be found. The look of the library from afar is meant to be almost like a mirage, too strange and beautiful to be real. Passersby in the park are tempted to approach and see what this unusual building is all about, drawing them into a world of books in the process. The lushly vegetated library design seamlessly blends into its parkland environment, and although the facility features a total of nine floors, all are accessible via a ribbon-like walkway that leads from the ground level all the way up.

The library is crowned by a circular study room for 300 people with a 360-degree view of Milan. To reach it, guests ascend an elevator contained within a glass tower of books, rising from the building’s layered levels into the open air before reaching the ring-shaped floating element. This ring is flanked on either side by billowing structures resembling trees or giant mushrooms. All around them, green roofs undulate, segueing into both open-air outdoor spaces and protected interiors.

“The project’s starting point was the research into the meaning, usage, and features of a 21st-century library,” the firm explains. “Studio noa* reimagined it as a hub of creativity, aiming to create a stimulating environment for freeing the mind and acquiring new knowledge. As a prerogative, a relaxed and quiet atmosphere, as an added value, the possibility of moving in a hybrid environment breeding new ideas, where the line between inside and outside becomes blurred. Therefore, the design of a complex architectural structure was flanked by the creation of the natural landscape, which permeates all spaces.”

“It feels like climbing a tree after having walked through a lush garden. And not by chance, since the archetype that inspired the team of architects is the Garden of Eden, where the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil grows. The biblical episode linked to it is perhaps one of the narratives philosophers have drawn on most to portray humanity. According to Hegel, by eating the forbidden apple from the Tree of Knowledge, Eve was the first person to stand apart from the animals, acquiring consciousness and intentionality in doing. When Eve became interested in the unknown, paraphrasing, libraries found their raison d’être. On the roof of the BEIC, Studio noa* wanted to recreate an earthly Eden, where to celebrate the beauty of knowledge and continually encourage people to reach out to unknown worlds.”

Check out more visionary projects by Studio noa*, including a geometric modular building system, a stunning modern bed and breakfast in Italy, and a theatrical spa in the Alps.

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This colorful Ho Chi Minh City apartment is the perfect example of how the maximalist madness is taking over homes IRL, not just in design mags and social media feeds. Dubbed the “Dreamscape” apartment and designed by the Saigon-based Red5Studio, the space is a colorful ode to space-age design that perfectly encapsulates the swervy-curvy, topsy-turvy, vividly playful vibes taking the design world by storm.

Home to a couple who makes their living in the art world, the Dreamscape Apartment was created to provide inspiration while also evoking a welcoming, homey environment. With a focus on curvy lines and soft edges as opposed to the hard, straight lines and sharp angles so commonly seen in minimalist decor, the home feels like a retro retreat — one bursting with skittle-worthy colors that pop against its white-walled palette.

The middle of the apartment is dominated by a burnt orange sofa that looks straight out of a (comfy) spaceship — but that’s not all. A swirly, partially enclosed blue-walled “cave” faces the space-age sofa and houses DJ equipment for entertaining guests. The room itself is open, airy, and full of light, highlighting the many pops of riotous color that draw the eye — a flower power rug here, a globe light fixture there, the perfect balance of kitsch and low-key elegance.

The open plan main room flows purposefully into a dining room that’s by far the most understated space in the apartment. Dominated by a clear resin table that catches the light and swirls with delicate ripples, the effect is subdued yet magical. You can even spot a touch of whimsy in the accompanying black and green chairs, and the matching green kitchen counter behind them.

The bedroom continues the space’s study in bright, shapely furnishings with a gold upholstered bed complete with zebra-patterned bedding and super groovy light fixtures.The curved doorway and mirrored room divider are straight out of the 1988 Geena Davis classic Earth Girls are Easy — think a “futuristic” 1950s design aesthetic seen though the lens of over-the-top 1980s glam.

Despite its excesses, the Dreamscape apartment is still quite livable. Its rainbow-hued grooviness is perfectly complemented by its soft edges and muted, swirling aesthetics. It’s nighttime neon and DJ cave make it the perfect place for a party. A scintillating blend of futuristic funk and retro vibes, this Ho Chi Minh City apartment is the epitome of multidimensional maximalism — and the height of “good vibes only” style.

The post Space-Age Style Gets Its Groove Back in this Retro Ho Chi Minh City Apartment first appeared on Dornob.

These pieces were dreamed up by Slovenian-born designer and Bohinc Studio founder Lara Bohinc. The armchairs and poufs are not “naked,” she insists; they’re modestly upholstered in fine, soft wool fabric. She was inspired to create them after working as a jewelry designer in the fashion industry for many years, where curvy bodies are not typically welcome. She wanted to craft pieces that not only feel like sinking into the body of a woman you love, but encourage acceptance of real bodies, flaws and all.

“The female form has always been a source of inspiration in art, photography, and design, but often with an unrealistic eye or as a response to society’s perception of how the female body ‘should’ look,” says Bohinc. “I wanted the Peaches collection to be a pure and unabashed celebration of femininity and the female form, celebrating every curvy, voluptuous, and fleshy detail.”

“Although my previous work has always had a feminine touch, my pieces have often featured more geometric qualities. The Peaches collection is my most curvaceous to date, reminiscent of all the gorgeous shapes of a woman’s body and with no straight lines or sharp angles in sight.”

The Derriére armchair might just be the boldest of the three pieces in the collection. The inspiration pointed out by the name is front and center, immediately recognizable, in both the back and seat. The “arms” of the chair are really more like softly folded legs. The matching Peachy pouf is a mass of breast-like forms upon which to rest your weary feet.

The Big Girl armchair, the largest piece in the collection, is just slightly more abstracted. Swelling, sensual shapes come together to offer a low-slung seat that cradles the body with six bulbous supporting elements. Wood and steel are used to create the frames of each piece, while foam fills them out. Each one is handmade in a North London upholstery workshop and can be purchased from Bohinc Studio’s online shop, with prices ranging from just over £7,000 to £14,000 (about $8,300 to $16,600). Every purchase is individually numbered and comes with a certificate of authenticity.

If you find Bohinc Studio’s pointedly mammalian Peaches collection a little lurid, or maybe even offensive, the company offered a clarification in an interview with The New York Times. “I’m lucky I’m not a man. I would have to be very, very careful [about inviting people to sink into the provocative seating]. But because I’m a woman, I can celebrate my own body. It’s the difference between objectifying something and celebrating something.”

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Not many people outside Nvidia’s employees will ever be able to get the full experience, but CNET got an exclusive tour of the interiors that gives us a pretty good idea of what it would be like to work there. A walkway lined with trees and shaded with solar panels leads from the Endeavor to the Voyager, and just inside the entrance, you’ll see what looks like a series of jagged mountain-shaped structures inside the main envelope of the building. A stairway scales the central “mountain,” which is where employees meet up and work.

Climb to the top of that mountain, and you can gaze out at the interior landscape of seating areas covered with pergolas to shield them from the afternoon sun. White multi-level mezzanines on either side contain more conventional office spaces. Grasses, vines, and shrubs spill out of long built-in planters that cover virtually every surface of this space, including a sizable green wall. Triangular skylights overhead allow daylight to pierce the roof and keep the plants happy.

At the peak of the mountain is a faceted black structure meant to evoke the image of an abstracted volcano. Inside this “caldera” is a long live-edge wooden table for meetings. As you climb down the back, you see more seating areas, conference tables, and an amphitheater where employees watch presentations. Outside the Voyager but beneath the “trellis” (a canopy covered in solar panels), employees enjoy elevated “bird nest” areas to meet and lounge. These circular enclosures contain sculptural benches, café tables, and an open roof that floods the space with sunlight. Four acres of garden separate the Voyager from the Endeavor.

It’s an unusual design, but Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang wanted a building that gave every employee a view. All offices face outside windows, and employees can choose to work anywhere on campus, not just at stationary desks. The plans were launched well before the pandemic began, but now that the campus is complete, Nvidia sees it as a worthwhile investment. Sure, a lot of employees are choosing to work from home, but if you want to draw your employees back to the office, a gorgeous design like this one is a great way to do it.

If you haven’t seen inside the Endeavor, it’s pretty worth checking out. Architecture firm Gensler designed it around a glass-enclosed elevator core that whisks employees up from an underground parking lot and into a faceted black metal “cocoon” that forms the heart of the building. Just like the Voyager, the Endeavor features a multitude of skylights.

“We worked hard to get the right specifications of glass makeup to allow us the right quality of diffused and soft sunlight in the space,” says Hao Ko, principal and managing director at Gensler. “The final result — where the daylighting is evenly dispersed throughout and evenly experienced by everyone — is a testament to the upfront work we did in design.”

Check out the full tour of the new Voyager building over at CNET.

The post Nvidia’s Voyager HQ Seduces WFH Employees Back with a Dazzling Design first appeared on Dornob.

“We decided to create a structure that can blend itself into its surrounding environment, the special features [are] all about the mixing, the lightness, the hiding, the penetration. The result is an organic structure just like straw sitting [in] the garden.”

Working from the belief that “straw is an image of memory, one that belongs to the Vietnamese countryside,” the MIA team, led by principal architect Nguyen Hoang Manh, constructed a framework reminiscent of a pile of straw collected after a summer’s harvest.

Nestled in a parkland in the Ho Chi Minh City suburb of Thủ Đức, the pavilion was commissioned by construction media company Ashui for their 2021 exhibition and awards ceremonies. To facilitate those needs, MIA Design Studio began with a wooden platform for presentations and then surrounded it with a metal grid structure, allowing them to strategically place wooden planks at perpendicular angles through the mesh.

That backdrop is situated across a stream from a large area for spectators, connected by a narrow wooden footbridge. At night, the Straw Pavilion is immersed in a glow of light, lit up at ground level by radiant bulbs. The lattice design gives the structure a kind of shapeshifting quality as observers change positions, with different angles providing adjusted perspectives. The see-through nature of the batten and mesh was intended to let the “straw” simultaneously stand out from and merge with the surrounding landscape of fruit and vegetable gardens.

“The straw is an entity that is able to completely blend itself into the natural context,” the architects explain. “Not parading around shapes as well as materials, we hope it is able to appear and disappear with time, with no direct interaction to the garden itself. In the most perspicuous way, this is a structure which does not damage the one existing, it blends in smoothly.”

For its thoughtful outdoor design, MIA was nominated for the 2021 Architecture Masterprize, and was a finalist for the 2021 Architizer A+ award.
MIA Design Studio got its start in Ho Chi Minh City in 2003. Now a firm employing over 50 architects, interior designers, and technicians, its guiding principles include a commitment to sustainability to “ensure that our actions and decisions today do not inhibit the opportunities of future generations.” They attempt to be efficient and moderate in their use of materials, energy, and development space.

As great admirers of the modernist movement, the company is known for their “formal simplicity, [and the] integration of interior and exterior into fluid spaces with special attention to the landscape and climate conditions of each project.”

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