Produced in collaboration with The Woolbeding Charity and the National Trust, Glasshouse acts as a spectacular focal point for a new garden that takes visitors on a 12-step journey through a mock Silk Road. The ancient network of Eurasian trade routes played a central role in cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and the West, and it still influences the designs of English gardens to this day. Some favorite English garden plants like rosemary, lavender, and fennel were brought to Britain for the first time along this route.

Following the garden path, visitors will discover over 300 plant species across 12 regions of the Silk Road, including Mediterranean evergreens and Gallica roses brought to Europe by traders from Persia. Inside the Glasshouse, they’ll find tropical species like umbrella trees, magnolias, bananas, and a rare Aralia vietnamensis. During colder weather, the structure’s ten steel “sepals” remain closed to protect the plants. When it’s warm, the sepals open using a hydraulic mechanism to provide access to sunlight and ventilation.

“This is a place and a project that literally unfolds,” says Heatherwick. “You step through this bewitchingly beautiful garden and discover an object that starts like a jewel and ends like a crown as the Glasshouse slowly unfurls. I think it also speaks of our need to keep creating amazing pasts. Weaving contemporary inventions into the fabric of historic settings and having the confidence to let each one speak to the other.”

It takes about four minutes for the Glasshouse to fully open, a process that must be a spectacle to behold in person. The structure already looks like a beautiful gem when closed, but once the sepals unfurl and point toward the sky, it catches the sunlight in a whole new way, scattering spiky geometric shadows all over the lawn.

“This Heatherwick Glasshouse represents the cutting edge of technical design and engineering, but it’s also a restoration of something that is part of Woolbeding’s history,” says Mark Woodruff of The Woolbeding Charity. “It stands as a crowning achievement in contemporary design, to house the flora of sub-tropical south-west China at the end of a path retracing the steps along the Silk Route, from temperate Europe and across mountains, arid lands, and high pastures that brought the plants from their native habitat in Asia to come to define much of the richness and glory of gardening in England.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChkJ7_3Y4PA

The Woolbeding Glasshouse and Silk Route Garden were created with the help of engineering firm Atelier Ten, MRG Studio landscape architects, moving structure specialist Eadon Consulting Ltd., Bellapart glasshouse engineering design and construction, and others.

The post Heatherwick Studio’s Sculptural Glasshouse Unfurls into a Crown first appeared on Dornob.

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.

The post Pebble Rubble: Nature-Inspired Sofas Reveal the Softer Side of Stone first appeared on Dornob.

Unique Objects from the MoMa Design Store

MoMA’s Design Store has a great selection of gifts that could best be described as contemporary art in the form of practical objects. Mondrian-inspired vases, the Vitra Eames Bird, and the classic vintage cat wall clock with its tick-tocking tail are just a few examples of the neat decor pieces you’ll find there. One standout is the $85 M.S.S. Wall Clock by Yohei Oki, which replaces numbers with rhythmically arranged geometric shapes. It’s an eye-catcher in black and ice blue.

Phaidon Press Coffee Table Books

Available at Amazon, Nordstrom, and from their own site, Phaidon Press books are coffee table classics, the kind of beautifully printed and fascinating tomes anyone would want to show off. Titles include Great Women Painters, Japanese Interiors, 1000 Design Classics, The Brutalists, Radical Architecture of the Future, and more, available for $49.95 and up.

Minted’s Direct-From-Artist Collection

Want to purchase from individual artists and creators but lack the time to shop in-person at holiday markets? Minted’s Direct-From-Artist collection is a curated marketplace of unique items shipped directly to you from each artist’s studio, and there are hundreds of items to choose from, including ceramics, wall art, baskets, and sculptures. It’s hard to single out favorites, but this $165 marble vanity tray by Brooklyn-based The Parmatile Shop is certainly a standout.

Cozy Cashmere Throws from Quince

Give someone a well-made cashmere blanket and they’ll be thanking you for years into the future. Who knows, they might even start wearing it as a cloak. There’s really nothing else like this ultra-soft fiber. It’s often blended with lambswool, alpaca wool, or polyester to lower the price point, but here’s a secret: you can get 100-percent Mongolian cashmere blankets at the crazy-low price of $129.90 from Quince, a company dedicated to making high-quality goods more affordable.

Colorful Cookware from Our Place

Coated with toxin-free ceramic in a range of shades that are to die for, Our Place’s cookware looks so good you’ll want to leave it out on the stovetop full time so everyone can admire it. The cult favorite Always Pan is the perfect introductory piece, measuring 10 inches in diameter with a matching lid for $99.

Luxe Candles from Le Labo and D.S. & Durga

With names like Spirit Lamp, ’85 Diesel, and Big Sur After Rain, D.S. & Durga’s scented candles ($65 each) clearly go beyond the typical. Fragrance notes like saffron, smoke, Scotch marmalade, and tea create complex and unexpected combinations. Le Labo’s luxurious candles ($82 each) pack a similarly sophisticated punch, filling the room with scents like the herb-infused Laurier 62 and the zesty lime and eucalyptus-based Verveine 32. Both brands can be purchased through Nordstrom with free shipping.

Kelly Wearstler Home Objects

If you’re after gifts that look like haute couture for the home, look no further than designer Kelly Wearstler, whose bowls, platters, vases, and tabletop objects are unlike anything you’ll find elsewhere. Most of these pieces are definitely an investment, but there are cute little splurges to be found, too, like the glass $300 Bubble Pitcher.

The post Sophisticated Home Decor Gifts for the Design Snob in Your Life first appeared on Dornob.

Ceysson & Bénétiere Gallery Presenting Daniel Firman

Entitled Attitude Jade #3, this piece by Daniel Firman had many visitors hesitantly approaching, afraid they were about to experience a jump scare or a performance piece a la Marina Abramović. It appears, at first, like perhaps a young woman is taking a long time gazing at some kind of artwork mounted on the wall and shrouded by a piece of fabric. But the whole thing is actually a hyperrealistic sculpture made of resin, clothing, a wig, and shoes. It was definitely among the most Instagrammable pieces in an event designed to produce Instagrammable pieces.

The Future Perfect at Design Miami/

If you’ve ever thought that furniture design was boring, even momentarily, take in this booth by The Future Perfect like a shot of espresso for your brain. Presented at Design Miami/ 2022, a collectible furniture fair exhibited as part of the larger Art Basel Miami event, the booth includes an alluring array of fascinating works, including a wool carpet by Claudy Jongstra, a Chris Wolston bronze coffee table, and boucle-and-aluminum club chairs — get all the details about every last element in this photo here.

Leandro Erlich Retrospective

Presented at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) is Leandro Erlich: Liminal, the first monographic exhibition of Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich’s work in North America. The exhibition features 16 works spanning more than two decades throughout PAMM’s special exhibition galleries. The works are arranged to create a narrative storyline as visitors make their way through the gallery, encountering reality-shifting interactive installations like Swimming Pool, originally created in 1999.

Mark Grattan at Design Miami/

Also at the Design Miami/ fair, furniture designer Mark Grattan’s sexy mirrored bedroom display was like 1980s cocaine culture softened up for 2023, its hard chrome edges contrasting with soft, curving lavender upholstery. Located in the booth by T&C O.G. Cristina Grajales, the display served up an aesthetic we didn’t know we were craving.

Perrotin Presenting Hernan Bas

Miami native Hernan Bas captured both the attention of festival goers and an excellent sum for his painting, titled Conceptual artist #15 (Performance based, along with a troop of hired actors he takes residence in ‘fixer upper’ homes and feigns nefarious occult activity to stir up the neighbors). Presented by Perrotin, the piece sold for $450,000. The title alone might be worth the price.

Savannah College of Art & Design Collaboration with Cerámica Suro

The Savannah College of Art and Design booth was an unexpected revelation at this year’s Art Basel, displaying works created in collaboration between SCAD students and Cerámica Suro, a Guadalajara-based studio known for pushing the boundaries of what artisanal ceramics can be. Founder José Noé Suro evolved his family’s manufacturing business into a globally renowned powerhouse through partnerships with leading contemporary artists. The vibrant collections of glazed tiles were created by SCAD alumni artists Nicolas Barrera, Lauren Clay, Gonzalo Hernandez, Cory Imig, Abel Macias, and Nikita Nagpal.

Thaddaeus Ropac Presenting Georg Baselitz

One of this year’s highest-selling works at Art Basel was also one of its most striking. London-based dealer Thaddaeus Ropac sold an abstract oil painting by Georg Baselitz entitled Emilio macht das Licht Aus (2020) for $1.4 million. The painting depicts a nude figure partially concealed within black and white brush strokes.

Sikkema Jenkins Presenting Maria Nepomuceno

Who doesn’t love to look at weird, slightly fleshy textile sculptures? Okay, maybe not everyone, but there’s no denying that Maria Nepomuceno’s work pulls you in to look closer and marvel at its complexities. Her display of colorful, organic forms was beautifully presented at Art Basel 2022 by gallery Sikkema Jenkins. This is just a taste of what the gallery has staged using Nepomuceno’s creations, so make sure to check out their previous exhibitions for more elaborate displays.

The post Our Favorite Works and Exhibits at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022 first appeared on Dornob.

“Public Art Electric Vehicle Charging Stations” is a collection of proposals that merge art, architecture, and technology, giving people something fun to look at and interact with while they’re charging their electric vehicles. The project addresses one major anxiety of transitioning from fossil fuel-powered vehicles to EVs — a lack of charging stations. Jantzen believes that creating massive, bright, and oddly-shaped charging stations could draw attention to the need for sustainable options and reassure the public that such stations actually exist.

Perhaps even more importantly, these EV charging stations don’t rely on grid power. Electricity in most of the world is still supplied by fossil fuels like coal and oil, and EVs usually depend on that energy to charge. To get around that issue (which will only be solved by shifting power grids to renewable energy sources), Jantzen’s charging stations are all solar and/or wind-powered.

The five public art charging stations are respectively named the Silver Solar Charging Station, the Black Waves Solar Charging Station, the Red Solar Charging Station, the Yellow Solar Charging Station, and the Solar Wind Charging Station. Each one sort of resembles a futuristic car wash, but each has its own set of distinguishing features.

The Silver Solar Charging Station is a corrugated steel structure supporting a large photovoltaic panel that’s held high in the air on two massive silver arms. The Black Waves Solar Charging Station, also made of steel, has a more fluid, aerodynamic design, with ribbon-like sections of steel covered in photovoltaic panels undulating over the top.

The bright pops of color seen in the Red Charging Station and Yellow Charging Station stand out even from afar, drawing the curiosity of passersby for miles around. The Red version has zig-zag solar panels on top, while the Yellow version features an eco-friendly concrete composite dome, with a series of circular disc-shaped solar panels mounted on its roof.

The only one that isn’t designed to be entered is the Solar Wind Charging Station. “Instead, people can drive alongside of the station to charge their vehicles,” says Jantzen. “It is also made of steel with a large curved shaped photovoltaic panel mounted onto the overhang. In addition to the solar panel, it also has a large vertical axis wind turbine incorporated into the design. Both the solar panel and the wind turbine make electricity from the sun and from the wind to charge the electric vehicles directly, and/or with batteries they continually charged.”

Thus far, these sculptural EV charging stations are just concepts, but perhaps they’ll spark some creativity as new charging stations continue to pop up around the world.

The post Michael Jantzen’s Artsy EV Charging Stations are Impossible to Ignore first appeared on Dornob.

It’s immediately clear why such pieces would be displayed in a gallery: they are indisputable works of art. The sculptural “Khanda” table is a standout, consisting of three separate black wood pieces that can either be pushed together or separated for flexible usage. “Khanda is a playful yet grounded piece with a certain sense of timelessness in its solid mass,” explain the designers. “Its function varies from a low table, a pair of stools, a bench… it is a dynamic piece of furniture which evolves in a room by changing its function over time.”

A pair of stools called “Cuddle” function much the same way as the Khanda table, coming together like living creatures seeking comfort. The makers explain that the design was born “as a story between two beings,” bringing two seated users together in close proximity or separating them as more autonomous beings.

Likewise, the alluring “La Nuit Étoilée” armchair embraces the user with a mysterious shape and a color palette inspired by the midnight sky. “As we approach it from the back, it appears like a piece of the moon, levitating in space,” says Atelier Pendhapa. “ [The inside] reveals a radically contrasting interior in soft night blue. A swivel mechanism is concealed within its solid dark wooden structure.”

The “Mast” chair aims to bring balance to the body with its solidity, which “anchors the object in space.” Its curved design consists of just two elements, a base, and a circular back that folds around the body to provide a sense of intimacy. The “Anchor” chair achieves a similar effect in a slightly different shape, with a lower center of gravity and a soft blue velvet seat.

The “Sarani” trio of objects takes its name from the Sanskrit word for “an endless spiritual path,” and includes three pieces designed with this notion of infinity embodied in their curving shapes. Atelier Pendhapa collaborated with a local fine metal craftsman to bring the objects to life, pairing their signature black teak with Kuningan metal. The objects include a striking coffee table, a vase, and a bowl.

Other pieces by Atelier Pendhapa are just as captivating, like the “Naksathra” sofa with its skeletal black frame and structured white cushions, the graphic black and white “L’Écorce” bench with its built-in side table, and the invigorating “Admani” bench, a collaboration with artist Helena Bajaj Larsen.

Founded in 2019, Atelier Pendhapa consists of designer/architect duo Antonin Hautefort of France and Ignatio Tenggara of Indonesia. Hautefort and Tenggara bring together their diverse cultural backgrounds and a shared passion for local craftsmanship to design spaces and objects that evolve over time, yet feel timeless and always in dialogue with their context.

The post Atelier Pendhapa’s Dramatic Black Teak Furniture Collection Debuts at Paris Gallery first appeared on Dornob.

The unnamed singer purchased a three-bedroom apartment in a 25-story Foster + Partners complex on the banks of the River Thames, and though it had amazing views, it was basically a blank slate full of way too many beige surfaces. He wanted its interiors to be more engaging than the city outside, a perfect setting for parties full of movers and shakers. It also had to be substantially different from his other home, a converted barn in the countryside.

The artwork, itself a tight closeup on Bowie’s face, is a collage-style portrait with a faceted geometric effect. Its soft tones of blue, gold, and the dark red shock of hair provided the mood and the base palette for the space. Though the inspiration is retro, the designers still wanted the apartment to feel contemporary, so they started by ripping out the old wood floors and replacing them with marmoleum, an eco-friendly natural material that’s easy to clean. This new surface is covered in a custom pattern, with black and pale blue shapes dancing across an off-white background.

“The open and adventurous nature of the brief allowed for a bold use of color and form,” the designers explain. “Sculptural, flowing shapes echo the curved lines of the architecture, while bespoke-made pieces such as a coral-colored drinks cabinet add moments of surprise. The lively design vernacular carries through the whole apartment, including a glittering sequined toilet (complete with disco ball) that plays David Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ on a loop.”

With a bathroom as eccentric as that, the rest of the apartment had to have its own elements of delight. They come in the form of unexpected shapes and colors, like the triangular bookshelves in the living room, a graphic rug, and new kitchen tiles in a bold grid pattern. In fact, bold geometric patterns are virtually everywhere in the home, including the wallpaper, curtains, and headboards in the bedrooms, a series of custom black-and-white closet doors, and additional wall art.

“The principal bedroom was a really difficult shape as well,” Gordon adds. A bed takes up most of the room’s footprint, so the designers framed a custom headboard directly against the wall. “Its curve mirrors the shape of the room, as do the bedside tables.” Both are a rich, deep red, since “monochrome always brings a room together,” as she explains.

The oversized green velvet sofa is custom (naturally), as is the dining table, which is ringed by Noom’s Gropius chairs in a mouthwatering shade of orange. The inside of the bar cabinet echoes that color in a slightly softer hue. Fun shapes like Sella Concept’s Ladies Pond stools in the blue-gray shade of “Jesmonite” carry the abstract sculptural feel through each room.

Ultimately, the apartment does feel like a space that would make David Bowie proud. Check out the singer’s own slightly more subdued personal taste with a glimpse of the New York City apartment where he lived before his death in 2016, which sold for $16.8 million.

The post This Wild David Bowie-Inspired London Apartment Does the Late Singer Proud first appeared on Dornob.

“The fashion industry produces 10 percent of humanity’s carbon emissions and creates a huge amount of pollution in the process of making textiles,” Holloway explains, adding: “By contrast, this project explores the promising possibility of root-grown textiles and imagines compostable and sustainable fashion. As fashions change, new clothes grow and old clothes are composted. Grown from root, inspired by marine life.”

Rootfull takes advantage of overlooked materials that exist literally right beneath our feet. Certain grasses grow roots that can reach over a dozen feet down into the Earth. Even common Bermuda grass, found in most lawns, has roots measuring eight feet. Holloway used wheatgrass for the series, cultivating the seed in templates carved from beeswax. Roots naturally grow into mesh-like structures, but Holloway guided them into templates over a 12-day growing period to get the shapes she wanted.

“The challenge is to sew, cut, tease, join, pluck, set, and reset until the root has found the optimal form,” Holloway writes. “Root is an exciting and versatile material where the most honest results are achieved by working with the natural flows of the fiber. It can be grown into large hanging structures or set and molded to form vessels, and it responds especially well to natural dying processes.”

“When freshly harvested, the roots are heavy and damp, and after 24 hours they dry out to become featherweight, and strong enough to support their own weight. The root forms a kind of botanical skeleton, trapping carbon, and therefore becomes a tiny part of the solution to the complex problem of climate change.”

Because of the nature of living materials, each piece in the collection is entirely unique, even if the same beeswax templates are used. In a sense, Holloway collaborated with Mother Nature herself, guiding the wheatgrass roots to produce visually interesting results. She’s even able to grow the roots into large mats much like a bolt of fabric so they can then be shaped into beautiful dresses. The silhouettes they achieve are truly remarkable, demonstrating the kind of creativity that’s possible when we stop limiting ourselves to harmful polluting materials simply because that’s what we’re used to using.

Holloway’s non-wearable Rootfull pieces have their own sense of natural elegance. Some of them really do resemble coral and sea fans, so why shouldn’t we display these in our home instead of contributing to the many threats to coral reefs? The pieces are also gorgeous as lampshades, with the light bringing out the intricacy of the woven patterns.

The post Zena Holloway Weaves Living Plant Roots into High Fashion Outfits first appeared on Dornob.

“I love simplicity and purity,” the French-Canadian-born artist says. “I have an aversion to clutter and I find minimalism somewhat oppressive. All these pieces are meant to be used and be playful and played with — nothing I make is precious or too fragile, it’s meant to be used. My mantra is ‘no coasters.’”

Debuting his seven household objects at the Lower Manhattan gallery Matter Projects from September 22nd to November 30th, this is the first time Perron has “actually physically showed things to people,” the first time that people can see and touch his work in person. As a creative director, he has made a name for himself working on video production, print, brand identity, and set design for stars like Jay Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West. Perhaps his most famous work is the floating Ferrari he was able to orchestrate for Drake’s 2018 concert series.

Furniture design, while a new arena for Perron, stays true to his enveloping dramatic style. For starters, his Sausage Sofa is an enormous 40-foot long “bean bag thing,” an “adult playground stoner dream.” His inspiration came from his younger days in Montreal. “My neighbors had this giant beanbag, and as kids we would all just jump around in this thing and just play in this thing all day long, so it’s kind of a nod to that,” the designer told Architectural Digest.

Also included in the collection is the Pillo Sofa, which appears to be constructed completely out of overstuffed cushions. Hailed as a “near instant classic,” Perron designed it and other pieces in his line simply because he couldn’t locate what he was looking for anywhere else.

“Some of the furniture pieces came from us trying to find pieces for interior projects that we were working on at my studio when we couldn’t quite find perfect options with the right energy. It was just developing pieces to put into projects. I like the idea that in doing people’s interiors or their homes a lot of the pieces are unique, and they’re not that commercially available.”

The “No Coasters” anthology incorporates the Dino surfaces trio: a table, bench, and coffee table. They all feature organically-round legs and softened table edges. The Vanessa seat is an ultra-comfy riff on a papasan chair. All the pieces are colored in the beige and brown tones of the arid landscapes near Perron’s Hollywood Hills home.

When asked if he’ll continue in furniture design, the artist he replied “absolutely.” Reiterating his design aesthetic, he says, “Objects, and clothes, and things in life don’t have to be uncomfortable to be beautiful, and it also doesn’t negate more visceral things, and doesn’t make it less attractive. They don’t need to have those constraints to be beautiful…. I like that idea of being able to live in the things that you have. They’re not museum pieces.”

The post Willo Perron Launches “Anti-Coaster” Furniture Collection first appeared on Dornob.

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.

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.

The post Soft Cylinders: Every Piece in this Furniture Collection Starts with One Simple Shape first appeared on Dornob.

German designer Deniz Aktay took a cylindrical wooden side table and carved a deep J-shaped groove into one side to create “Bookgroove” — one large enough to hold roughly two dozen mid-sized books. The visual effect is playful, with the color of the book spines contrasting with the neutral tone of the light wood grain. And it’s still functional as a side table, with plenty of room to set down your glasses, the remote, or a cup of coffee (though not everyone is comfortable with the idea of placing liquids over their favorite reads).

The Bookgroove is not his first foray into the realm of bookshelf furniture. Aktay’s “Booknest” is a vertical shelf with an almond shaped opening, wherein users can stuff a number of books like a squirrel might shove its food into a tree hole. Similarly, his “Plot Twist” resembles a warped version of an old 90s CD storage tower.

Before discovering his passion for furniture design, Aktay studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Stuttgart. After working as an architect for some time, he started making his own furniture in his free time, even entering several furniture design contests. “The more I focused on designing furniture and objects, the more my enthusiasm grew,” he says on his Behance profile.

That enthusiasm eventually became a full-time job for him, and he now has almost 100 different projects posted on Behance. He explains: “Over time I figured out that good design means…finding the right harmony between proportion, material, and functionality. This goes with my demand for simplicity, originality, proper element joining, detailing, and appropriate use of the materials involved. Considering all these aspects, designing a new piece is an interesting challenge every time.”

While the Bookgroove is a novel concept, one concern yet to be answered by the designer is whether the books at the base and curve of the inset would become misshapen over time, or if the books at the bottom could even be removed individually. But maybe that’s missing the point, and form is meant to trump function in this striking design. It’s definitely a head-turning piece, as evidenced by the over 120,000 likes on Aktay’s Instagram handle.

Aktay’s next task is to get enough interest to be able to sign on with manufacturers of his unique pieces. “The biggest challenge is to share your ideas with the public. I met so many nice people, got lovely comments, so much good advice, much encouragement,” Aktay said in an interview with HomeCrux. “I could attract attention from various interesting manufacturers – so my first professional jobs in designing and furniture realization as well as in visualizing them are just getting started.”

Those intrigued by his innovative designs can check out his work on his website and Instagram account.

The post This Modern Side Table Holds Your Books in an Awesomely Unique Way first appeared on Dornob.

At the center of the collection is an incredible 6.5-foot-tall handwoven tapestry called “Zemlia,” which is made of wool. The tapestry evokes the black earth of Ukraine and the potential for life contained within it. Long woven strands stretch out from the base almost like umbilical cords, symbolically connecting Ukrainians now located in far-flung locations to their homeland. No matter where in the world they might be, nothing can sever this bond. The technique used to create the tapestry is an ancient Ukrainian craft called “lizhnykarstvo,” once passed down from mother to daughter in the Carpathian Mountains and now close to extinction.

Just as striking and primeval are the animal-shaped benches Yakusha calls “Volyky” and the stools she calls “Duzhyi.” The black and white benches take their name from the Ukrainian word for freedom, and are hand-sculpted and kneaded using a sustainable material called “ztista” that Yakusha developed herself. The designer’s physical participation in the creation of these pieces can literally be seen in the form of her own fingerprints pressed into the surface of each one. The technique is derived from a traditional wall finish in old Ukrainian homes.

“Duzhyi” means “sturdy” in Ukrainian, and the name is fitting for the very solid-feeling sculpted forms of the stools. While the benches bear a more obvious resemblance to sheep, the stools are animalistic yet abstracted. Yakusha doesn’t necessarily start with sketches when sculpting — she likes to allow the forms to come to her unbidden, springing forth from her imagination as she works.

Yakusha established FAINA in response to the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine, which took place over five days in 2014. Through her creations, the designer aims to give a new voice to millennia-old traditions and crafts that are in danger of disappearing. Yakusha hopes her deeply meaningful designs will inspire other artists and contribute to a global perception of Ukraine not just as its own country with a distinct character and heritage from its neighboring invader, but as a living, evolving culture with much to contribute to society at large.

“A tragedy like September 11th is happening every week in Ukraine,” Yakusha tells Design Miami. “Russians destroy physically, destroy culturally, try to appropriate history, and suppress identity. The whole creative industry is having a particularly hard time with this because our strength is our sensitivity, and right now this sensibility is overwhelming… But we, Ukrainians, have huge power inside, and all our creativity will result in a beautiful outpouring for a brighter future for sure. To resist, we must be fearless in how we act, speak, and create. Fear leads to darkness.”

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India experienced a record high heat wave this past spring, with temperatures reaching upwards of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. This led to a massive landfill fire outside of Delhi that burned for weeks, and even caused overheated birds to fall from the skies.

While modern air conditioning systems exist in Indian cities, the majority of the population is still without access to such technology. And since the greenhouse gases emitted by AC units contribute to global warming, trying to blanket the country with them may not be the best solution anyways.

That’s where Ant Studio’s eco-friendly idea comes in: using recirculated water to evaporate and cool the air as it continually flows down a beehive-shaped stack of clay tubes.

Evaporative cooling techniques date back to the ancient Egyptians. They would fan porous jars of water in their chambers, enjoying some temperature relief as the evaporating water took some of the oppressive heat with it. The Romans also employed water and clay to cool their houses, allowing the liquid to course through pipes in their walls.

Building a prototype of their brainchild outside the Deki Electronics factory in Uttar Pradesh, India, Ant Studio inserted cylindrical clay tubes into a rounded steel frame positioned on top of brick and tile basin. The Beehive’s water pump continually sends recycled water from the industrial plant up to the top of the structure, where it then flows down the surface of the clay. The multitude of clay pipes provides a larger surface area, increasing the cooling effect. Temperature measurements showed that the Beehive reduced the surrounding air to 97 degrees Fahrenheit from its previous 107 degrees.

After carefully studying various materials, Ant Studio chose clay as a material for the beehive because of its hygroscopic, or water attracting, properties. The designers found that clay carries a negative charge that bonds with the positive pole of a water molecule, allowing it to absorb water in both vapor and liquid states. Additionally, clay is completely recyclable, as it contains no complex chemicals or components.

The entire system is energy efficient and less expensive than traditional air conditioning. The use of recycled water from the factory’s existing supply minimizes waste. The water tank only needs topping off roughly once a month ,and the recirculating pump uses a small amount of electricity, making the Beehive a very economical cooling mechanism.

In areas where electricity is unavailable, the system could also be converted to a “zero-energy” model, with water being manually poured over the pots once or twice a day. While it would not have the same cooling power, it would have some effect and could still be easily built and maintained from local resources.

Ant Studio is also excited about employing pottery as part of the art/cooling device as a way of reviving what it sees as a fading ancient art. If the Beehive were to gain widespread traction, it could generate more work in the pottery market and help train new artisans in the trade.

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Stefano Pilati, former Yves Saint Laurent lead designer and founder of fashion brand Random Identities, teamed up with Pinto Design chair and co-artistic director Fahad Hariri to produce two striking pieces that use textiles to create voluminous forms that stand on their own as sculpture, but also cradle the body in ergonomic comfort.

The collaboration began with Pilati’s attempts to solve an interior design puzzle of his own. When he moved from Berlin to Sicily at the start of the pandemic in 2020, he purchased an 18th-century villa with proportions far too grand for the furniture he owned at the time.

“Everything looked tiny, the volumes overwhelmed any object to the point that I preferred nothing more than something that didn’t fit,” he says. “Then I put a carpet on the side of the sofa and after I put it on the chair. It was quite simple, but very effective. What I liked [was that] it was a material that was quite rigid, was that you could mold it, and everything became quite sculptural.”

Already a fan of Pilati from his days with Yves Saint Laurent, Hariri reached out through a mutual friend and visited Pilati’s Italian home. He found the experimental draping of the straw and water hyacinth rugs on sofas and rattan armchairs a revelation. The duo worked together to adapt the concept into a reproducible piece for Pinto Design, alongside a sofa drawn from Pilati’s origami-like way of folding the fabrics that wrap his own furniture.

The use of rugs and semi-rigid materials sculpturally transforms the basic shapes of a chair and sofa, maintaining their original functions while making them visually larger in selective ways. The sand-colored “Dune” sofa consists of rounded forms, with the fabric stretched tightly across the seat and back. The outward-tilting arms, however, have an extra bit of draping that gives them an interesting silhouette. Oversized at 350 x 135 x 96 cm, the sofa features a beechwood and solid oak base, high resilience foam padding, and coil springs. The upholstery is a cotton, linen, viscose, and silk blend called “Shanghai” from heritage French textile house Maison Pierre Frey.

The “Sculpture” armchair is molded on Pilati’s own chair using the art of lost-wax bronze casting, a technique used by sculptors like Auguste Rodin. The result is more rigid than it looks, and (crucially) durable. Pilati and Hariri envision the collection as multipurpose for either indoor or outdoor spaces. The chair will be produced in a run of 8 for 45,000 each, and the sofa will be produced in a run of 30 for 65,000. Both will be available exclusively through Pinto Design.

“I agreed to this project because I find industrial and artisanal design generally inspiring,” Pilati told WWD. “It is possible to find some affinities across the industrial aspect of fashion design where it becomes necessary to recall the physics, gravity, proportions, and tensions shared between elements and surfaces. Upholstery, as a craft, is something a fashion designer can understand with a certain familiarity, I believe.”

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Based in Brooklyn, Mastrangelo has a background in fine art that shows in every item he creates. His childhood in Mexico and Argentina inspired a love of nature that informs his stylistic choices. He describes his aesthetic as “raw minimalism,” preferring to work with materials like cast sand, wood, powdered glass, sugar, and surprisingly enough, human ashes.

One standout collection is DRIFT, a series of sculptural pieces inspired by glaciers and natural earth formations from the designer’s voyages to Patagonia and the Grand Canyon. Consisting of a sofa, mirror, bench, and side table, DRIFT juxtaposes elements that are polished and highly finished with those that are raw and less controlled. Mastrangelo describes the sofa as coming together in a “poetic mass” of classic upholstery and sharp-edged sculpting techniques.

The CAPITAL collection is a series of three mirrors titled “Aurora,” “Marina,” and “Sahara,” which adorn reflective surfaces with hand-dyed sand to reference the natural beauty of Dubai. Another collection called RIDGE takes a darker tone, with layers of black, gray, and white sand creating the illusion of distant landscapes after sunset. These cast sand pieces include drums, tables, and wall-mounted slabs, as well as a 1,452-piece cut glass mosaic wall mirror mimicking the look of abstracted mountains.

You won’t often see Mastrangelo’s work at indoor design fairs. As far as he’s concerned, the next generation of buyers “is not interested in walking through a booth-filled convention center where they don’t feel connected to the experience,” as he told Surface Magazine. “They want to travel to see and interact and participate in the things they love.”

The designer often chooses to put his works on display in public spaces instead, such as “Tiny House,” an interactive pop-up full of lush plants that he parked in Times Square during NYCxDesign. This project shows off Mastrangelo’s vision of the future of design, using reclaimed materials and a small footprint to promote sustainability without sacrificing highly Instagrammable beauty.

Where will Mastrangelo’s work go from here? Even bigger and more interactive.

“I’m looking to use the language I’ve created through my sculpture and furniture practices in new and interesting ways,” he says. “This has led me to a newfound fervor for designing experiential spaces. At last year’s Collective Design, I designed a booth called The Dream that was inspired by a Henry Rousseau painting; it was a space designed to evoke the lush feeling of the sun setting in the jungle. This year, I designed the Art Basel Lounge for Audemars Piguet which will travel the world. It also transports its visitors, but this time to a Swiss mountain range.”

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