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(via: designboom)

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Expandable and customizable, The Dresser starts with a single base for all sizes. You simply select the drawer units that fit your needs now, with the ability to swap them out in the future if your needs change. Start with either the Two Unit Dresser, which is 47 inches wide, or the Three Unit Dresser, which is 71 inches wide. Then choose your drawer configuration from eight available combinations. You could have a smaller number of larger drawers, a larger number of smaller drawers, shelves with cabinet-style doors, or a combination of any of the three.

Then, you get to choose your frame and top color in walnut, maple, or beige, and your drawer/door covers, available in the same options plus jasper green and canary yellow. You can always change your mind later and purchase new drawer units in different configurations or colors. If you want to go from a double unit to a triple unit, just add an extra base surface.

The idea behind Floyd’s modular system is that your furniture can easily move and grow with you. The modularity makes it easy to transport — a key reason why many people buy from IKEA in the first place — and easy to shift into new shapes and sizes as needed. Say you move into a studio apartment, and suddenly that huge bookcase you bought no longer fits your space. If you had Floyd’s shelving system, instead of getting rid of it, you could just assemble it into a different shape, or break it into multiple units.

The heavy duty base materials, including 11-gauge steel and FSC-certified walnut, mean that unlike most modular minimalist furniture you’ll find on the market, these pieces could be a new version of the old family heirloom, adapted to the more nomadic modern lifestyle. Founders Kyle Hoff and Alex O’Dell launched Floyd in an effort to reduce our reliance on disposable furniture, designing the pieces to be as inclusive as possible.

In addition to the new Dresser, favorites from Floyd include the aforementioned Bed Frame, which boasts a simple, low-slung design with available add-ons like underbed storage, a headboard, and a size expansion kit; The Sofa, a minimalist frame covered in cozy cushions that can be expanded with a chaise; The Sectional, which is just as modular as you’d imagine; and The Table, which draws inspiration from Floyd’s original Leg.

The Dresser is available now, starting at $3,000 for the Two Unit version, $4,500 for the Three Unit version, and $1,200 for the expansion units.

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Most kids’ bedroom designs that “grow along with them” transform in some way, often with modular elements that can be dissembled and reassembled into new shapes. It’s unusual for the design to be static and contextually flexible, like “The Room for Small Gulliver” by rhymedesign.

Architect Taka Shinomoto, rhymedesign’s founder, renovated an apartment in Nagoya, Japan to include elements that can shift in function as the clients’ child grows up. Those same elements are also usable by the adults in the house, just in different ways. Central to the design are three gray frames: one incorporated into a massive built-in book shelf, one that’s mobile so it can be moved around the space, and a large nook that frames a bay window in the kitchen.

“As in Gulliver’s Travels and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, bodies of idiosyncratic scales can turn mundane lives into fantasies and dramas,” Shinomoto explains. “The relative body sizes can put the same environment in different perspectives — for adults, chairs are always to sit on, while for children, they could function as tables, desks, and counters. Looking up at the world from below, children find and experience the world in their own ways. As they physically grow, they also develop new relationships with the physical environment.”

The architect continues: “For the Room for Small Gulliver, I designed the three different sizes of gray frames. The largest is installed as a frame of the bay window facing the outside. The smallest is part of the bookshelf. The other is portable; it can be anywhere in the room. I designed them to grow relationships with the child, as his body and mind matures. The nook where his body completely fits can soon become a casual seat. The gate to the closet will not remain as it is experienced today, when the children’s body feels it differently. The portable frame should turn to a counter from a secret capsule in the near future.”

One of the coolest aspects of this design is that the child’s space isn’t separated from those of the adults. It’s actually in the living room, making the bulk of the home shared family space, though the parents do have their own tranquil bedroom for privacy and quiet.

The child’s experience of these spaces will change over time, but his enjoyment is considered just as important as that of the adults. While the shared areas are airy, white, and brightly illuminated, the bedroom is more like a cave, with the walls and ceiling painted a deep forest green that matches the bedding. The entrance to the closet is hidden behind an oversized picture of deer in the woods.

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On first glance, the Giralot looks like a colorful, modern version of a standard storage cabinet. The customizable storage compartments come in a rainbow of lacquer colors and three different stains of wood, and you can get them in different sizes, too. So far, so good right? But check out what happens when you open each module. Mounted to a column that’s anchored to the wall and rests on the floor, the compartments swing out as far as 180 degrees. You can choose whether they open left or right according to the shape of the area where it’s installed.

With about 30 different configurations of shapes and modules, the Giralot can be a handy place to store small objects in any room. Available accessories include clothing hooks, an umbrella stand, shoe holders, containers, bottle stands, extra shelves, and anti-rollover barriers for things you want to stay in place while a module swings open. There’s also a pull-out laptop shelf, if you want to use the Giralot as a mini workstation. Imagine it holding your toiletries in the bathroom, spices and oils in the kitchen, gloves and shoes in the entryway or scarves, hats, and ties in the bedroom.

You can also get the Giralot in mini size. While the original stands either 77 or 81 inches tall depending on which configuration you choose, the mini is 54 inches tall with either two or three modules. A fixed shelf at the very top stays put while the storage modules swing open. The clean, minimalist look of both Giralot units is a great fit with space-saving furniture from other manufacturers like IKEA, but Resource Furniture has a lot more smart solutions where this one came from.

Transforming tables include the Cristallo, a low-slung coffee table that pops up into a dining table or work surface; the Intra, a slim console with folding leaves that becomes a dining table for up to six people on demand; the Giro, which pops out 90 degrees from the wall to transform from a console into a dining table for four; and the Wally, a wall storage unit that lowers into a functional surface (among others).

Resource Furniture is perhaps best known for their wall beds and sofas, which can help even the tiniest of studio apartments feel a lot more spacious and livable. They include sectionals, bunk beds, twin XL Murphy beds, and a variety of seating styles that can be surrounded with shelves, cubbies, and other storage opportunities.

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Mousarris Design Studio cut fabric-covered foam into interlocking puzzle pieces that can be fit into a wall frame or pulled down and stacked on top of one another to create avant-garde “sofas.” Strong magnets within the furniture keep it from shifting with weight and also allow the units to attach back to the wall when being put away.

The Summit Sofa’s seven pieces can be arranged in dozens of configurations, and the website even encourages users to transform them into a “play area for you and your friends.” Admittedly, the connected shapes probably don’t have the same comfort and repose value of a traditional sofa, but they are robust enough to provide additional seating for short-term gatherings.

While the foam sections are in use, the wall frame reveals a navy background intersected with white wavy outlines. It serves not only as art itself (resembling overlapping mountain ranges), but as a template of where to replace the pieces when done.

The Cyprus-based furniture company was founded in 2015 by industrial engineer Stelios Mousarris with the intention “to produce high-quality pieces of conceptual furniture and unique objects beyond the boundaries of the imagination.” His bachelor’s degree in modelmaking frequently comes into play in his sculptural creations.

Mousarris has experimented with the boundary between art and furniture from the beginning of his career. His Wave City coffee table takes the folding cityscapes from the hit 2010 movie Inception and rolls them into a living room conversation piece. The precariously balanced, gravity-defying shape of the table simultaneously produces feelings of awe and uneasiness. It turns out that so many people are okay with that emotional contradiction that the price of the coffee table has jumped a whopping €3,000 in the past five years, leading the company to produce an accompanying “Wave City Bar.”

Mousarris is also known for his Carpet Chair, a handmade seat constructed from traditional Persian rugs in a way that “gives the illusion of a magic carpet floating in the air.” Each chair takes four months to complete and looks like it could never hold any weight but is actually surprisingly sturdy.

The designer’s more recent Zen Kusshion looks convincingly like a large boulder placed in the middle of rippling pool. But this stone gives way to soft comfort, offering a great seat for relaxation and finding a zen state of mind.

The company website also says that a collection of Mousarris’ work “can be found proudly displayed permanently at the Louvre museum’s 21st-century design wing” and has been published in three different books.

The new Summit Sofa is selling on the company site for €3,400. While no specifics were given for this design, Mousarris’ furniture is often produced in limited editions of 25 or less due to its unique nature, so this puzzling seating may not last long.

The post Mousarris Design Studio’s Summit Sofa Turns into Wall Art for Easy Storage first appeared on Dornob.

The original version of Ori’s Cloud Bed is brilliant in its own right, making the kind of robotic furniture we associate with The Jetsons look stylish, contemporary, and inviting. Aiming to save space by combining two rooms in one, it raises a king or queen size bed into the ceiling on demand, revealing the couch and coffee table hidden underneath. Now, an equally useful and adaptable version is available that swaps out the living room furniture for a sleek work area.

Ori’s Cloud Bed Table Edition allows your bedroom to do double-duty without requiring you to physically move anything other than your desk chair and laptop. No arduous pushing, pulling, or folding; you literally just tap a button on the bed or on your smartphone. It doesn’t get much easier than that. When you’re ready to turn in for the night, the bed descends, pushing the tabletop down to a lowered position. A built-in bookshelf along the wall then acts as a headboard, and your desk lamps become bedside lighting.

When the bed is tucked away within the ceiling unit, it’s virtually invisible. That’s what gives this transforming furniture unit its remarkable versatility. The desk is designed so you could sit across from visiting clients and they’d never guess they were really in your bedroom, which makes the Ori Cloud Bed pretty perfect for live/work setups. It’s not just ideal for people who work from home, though. It’s also a great way to make better use of a guest room, and it could even come in handy for hotel rooms, too. When space comes at a premium, why have an entire room dedicated to a part-time function like sleeping?

“Now more than ever we need our living spaces to better accommodate our many needs for working, sleeping, and living,” says Hasier Larrea, founder and CEO of Ori. “Ori’s new Cloud Bed, Table Edition makes the limited square feet of our spaces more usable and flexible – more livable. Adding the Cloud Bed, Table Edition to the Ori collection means developers have one more solution that can turn even the smallest apartment into a flexible and versatile space that adapts on demand to the needs of its residents.”

Both the table and sofa editions of the Cloud Bed are now available at select residential developments across the United States and to Real Estate Developers. They include built-in outlets, hidden dimmable LED lighting, and integration with home assistants like Amazon Echo and Google Home. Best of all, it’s modular, flat-packed, and assembled on site with no components permanently attached to the room, so you can easily disassemble it and take it with you if you move.

The post Ori’s New Version of Its Drop-Down Cloud Bed Integrates a Work-From-Home Desk first appeared on Dornob.

The new Healthy Interior line inserts weights and stretch bands inside common household items. For example, the “Le Coeur” looks like a sleek coffee or side table with its upholstered base and warm wood top, but its rotating lid and mod knobs are designed to aid with shoulder stretches and isometrics.

And then there’s the “Le Prie,” a padded stool (covered in a one of three chic fabrics) that also provides a core muscle workout as users tighten their abs and lower back to sit up straight. A separate version called “Le Prie Squat” provides both comfortable seating and help in achieving the perfect squat motion. The main stool bar pumps up and down with the weight of the user, working the legs and glutes.

The new collection also includes a petite gray ottoman called “Le Monyon.” Loaded with weights like an exercise ball, the entire ottoman can be lifted between the feet for calf and thigh toning, or the toes can be inserted under the resistance band strap to stretch out the foot muscles.

The “Ringretch” is cleverly costumed to look like a comfy throw pillow, but inside hides an exercise ring that can provide more strength-resistance training.

For a little arm and back toning, the pint-sized “Ballretch” weights are covered in soft alternating fabric, looking a bit like the hackey sacks of yesteryear. Each ball weighs roughly one pound and can be used for getting in some reps for the shoulders or biceps.

Mizuno’s Abs “Pulule” can double as a floor cushion and a scaffold for abdominal crunches. Covered in either yellow or gray, it features a seat and small back support that the company claims will effortlessly position the pelvis and sacrum for a traditional half sit-up.

There’s also a “Stretch Blanket” made from a special moisture-absorbing and heat-producing material. Users can slip their feet through the blanket’s straps to get a good calf stretch. The velvety wrap allows you to get a few exercises in while sitting at a desk during the work day or catching up on the latest Netflix shows in the evening.

All the new Mizuno Healthy Interior products can be purchased from the company’s online shop, ranging from about $28 for the Ballretch weights to roughly $182 for the La Coeur side table.

Mizuno Corporation, headquartered in Osaka, Japan, has been in business for over 110 years, becoming famous for their sports gear, including baseballs, gloves, golf clubs, and athletic footwear. They expanded to the U.S. market in 1961, opening up a factory in Los Angeles and soliciting sponsorship deals with several high-profile American athletes such as track and field star Carl Lewis and pro football quarterback Joe Montana. Today, the company produces athletic gear for all sports and outdoor recreation.

The post Mizuno’s “Healthy Interior” Furniture Doubles as Gym Equipment first appeared on Dornob.

Led by principle architect Patrick Lam, the firm aims to challenge our perceptions of smart homes while exploring the many ways in which thoughtful design can maximize even the smallest living spaces. Lam brought his own experience living in a small tenement apartment in the infamously cramped district of Kowloon to this bright, airy, and absolutely brilliant renovation for a young family.

The narrow unit benefits from a wall of windows on one side facing a view of beautiful natural scenery. At first glance, the living area appears oddly empty. There are no appliances or furniture to be seen aside from an entertainment console and a television along one wall. Panels in the floor are the first clue that the space contains more than it appears to, concealing all manner of storage, pop-up tables, and more. All visible surfaces are covered in plywood and timber veneer for an even cleaner look.

“Eric and Lory moved to Hong Kong from Taiwan many years ago and have a son; Eric needs to travel frequently throughout the country, and Lory is a flight attendant,” the architects explain. “Their lack of time spent at home means they often need grandmother to [come over and] take care of the children. Eric and Lory often talk about the scenery and homestay in Taiwan, and how they miss them so much.”

“Sim-Plex lifts up the entire living room with a wooden platform so that every corner can also come down at will. In addition to a large amount of storage, the platform also hides the intelligent lifting coffee table, creating a gathering point, sometimes as a tea ceremony, and sometimes as a toy’s playground. The dining room is made up of an open kitchen with a quartz stone high-top dining table and two arc-angle storage chairs, so no matter [where you are] while cooking or dining, you could also enjoy the scenery outside the window. The windowsills of the two rooms are surrounded by wooden frames to match the natural scenery.”

Ancient principles of feng shui and the latest in smart home gadgets coexist peacefully throughout the home. The architects also made use of natural materials, Zen philosophies about layouts that promote the proper flow of energy, and adaptable features that can meet the family’s constantly changing needs. A sliding partition separates the living room and kitchen either for privacy or to create a fourth bedroom, and the master bedroom is a peaceful refuge full of built-in storage.

With Smart Zendo (named after zendo, a place for Zen meditation), Lam shows that high-tech home features like voice-activated lights, speakers, air conditioning, motor-powered furniture, and projection screens can actually be kind of poetic.

He notes that: “Haiku, the Japanese poetry, is deeply influenced by Zen. There are ‘seasonal languages’ in the haiku. The Smart Zendo in this case is just like the seasonal language, and the four seasons of the scenery outside the window are introduced into the room to make the perfect merging of home and nature, so that the emotions of the homestay can be fermented.”

The post Transforming Hong Kong Apartment Makes Smart Home Tech Downright Zen first appeared on Dornob.

Unveiled on December 11th at the China International Industrial Design Expo, the “Slide-phone” features three foldable screens attached by hinges folding over vertically in the same direction. Technically, there’s no real sliding action involved, but rather an “unfurling,” as Engadget put it. The first segment offers a clock and notifications, the second opens the camera for selfies or video calls, and the third reveals the full seven-inch widescreen display you need to perform most tasks, play games, or watch movies.

A built-in stylus provides a finer level of precision on the touchscreen than your fingers allow. Another unusual feature is the suede leather-covered hinges, a material you don’t see on phones…well, ever, really.

“In addition to playing videos with an operable side panel, the user may also enjoy the phone as a controller in game mode with panels on either side, in multitask mode with numerous apps displayed in a row, and panoramic photography mode in full screen,” says Nendo. “The controls on the side of the phone are shaped like ellipses cut in half, functioning as two to four buttons, becoming small, semicircular buttons or combining into one large button as the folds slide up and down.”

“Further, the stylus ordinarily inserted in the phone may be taken out for use and the phone folded in half to give the user the feeling of writing in a notepad. The notion resulted in an interface allowing the user to open and close the upper half of the screen to, as it were, flip the page. The hinges are covered with suede leather to prevent the impression that, for having three hinges, the phone is an inorganic, rigid contrivance.”

The “music-link” feature allows the Slide-phone to interact with a constellation of other devices like a smartwatch, an AI speaker, a portable charger, and a wireless charger, all designed with a similar sleekness. As OPPO explains, “when the TWS earphones and portable charging case are placed on the AI speaker, users can enjoy a seamless music experience transitioning from headphones to speaker. This symbiotic design between devices, and the emphasis on portability and convenience, reflects OPPO’s integration of technology and human-centricity in its design philosophy.”

Folding smartphones aren’t a brand new concept, of course. Samsung’s book-style folding Galaxy Z Fold and Fold2 are widely available now for about $1,379 and $2,000 USD, respectively, and Huawei offers the similar Mate Xs with an edge-to-edge outer display for about $3,900 USD. Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip and Motorola’s Razr 2020 are clamshell-style folding phones that become impressively compact when closed. But none of these designs are quite as flexible in use as the Slide-phone, nor do they fold down as impressively small (about the size of a credit card).

For now, the Slide-phone is just a concept, and it’s hard to say whether it’ll ever actually go up for sale. But it could be a peek at where smartphone design is headed in the future. Are you intrigued?

The post Nendo’s New Folding Slide Phone is the Size of a Credit Card first appeared on Dornob.

“I was looking for a design that had extreme flexibility. A design that could reflect the ease with which we change clothes,” said Schols in an interview with The Mansionist.

The prefabricated, modern-yet-rustic cabin essentially has four configurations. First, the wood and glass walls can be fully pushed together, keeping out the cold and other unfriendly elements. Second, the glass walls can also be pushed out at the ends of the edifice, fashioning sunrooms on each side to enjoy the view. Third, the wooden encasements can be pushed apart, leaving a glass solarium in the center. And finally, both sets of walls can be pushed open to reveal an open-air patio for enjoying the most beautiful of days.

The versatility of the cottage brings the magnificence of the outside in, even allowing residents to sleep under the stars in the comfort of their own bed. Fresh air makes up a third room in the cabin when the sun is shining, while the wonders of the surrounding environment are still visible whenever rain or snow falls.

In the winter, the cabin is kept contentedly cozy by both a wooden stove and an electric heating unit, along with five centimeters of sawdust insulation in the walls. In the summer, the heat is held at bay by opening the rectangular windows situated under the roof eaves.

“The windows also give a panoramic view, but only when seated in a chair, or after waking up and experiencing the view from the bed,” Schols explains. “This way, when the wood shells are closed, there is a warm, cozy, indoor atmosphere…This contrasts highly with the exposure, freedom, and openness that is experienced when only the glass shell is closed or everything is open.”

To construct this moving, layered home, Schols inserted two sets of rails into the foundation. The glass walls fit into the inner rails, while the thicker exterior slides along the outer set. He also used untreated and sustainably grown larch lumber to produce the shifting shells. “The structure is completely built in wood. I used it in the way they build traditional train stations. It’s a structure that cannot get its stability from its side walls… The trusses guarantee lateral stability,” the architect explains, adding that “wood is durable, easy to work with, smells great, looks great, and is environmentally friendly.”

Named in honor of his mother to thank her for all her support and trust, Schols says ANNA’s palindrome arrangement is also metaphorical. “It fits the house perfectly; it is a sort of code for the design. You can imagine the two wooden sliding bits to be the N’s and the two glass sliding bits to be the A’s.”

After graduating in physics from the University of Amsterdam, Schols erected a sliding garden house for his nature-loving mother. The unique shed soon generated fans around the world, earning him multiple design awards. He then went on to study at the Architectural Association of London before commercially producing the ANNA cabin.

Available in three models, the ANNA Stay is devised for all kinds of living, whether it be year-round or in seasonal intervals. Equipped with a kitchen, bathroom, and ladder-accessible loft large enough to fit a king-size bed, it can comfortably accommodate a family of four. By contrast, the ANNA Meet is a blank canvas of walls. The website says this model is ideal for yoga, meetings, and educational or creative settings.

The third iteration is the customizable ANNA Me. Based on customer preference and intention, Schols’ company will “design, build, and deliver complete turnkey concepts” in this version.

Priced starting at €83,000 (about $98,600, not including taxed or transportation), the ANNA cabin is delivered in a one-piece flat-pack and can be assembled almost anywhere on Earth. A fully-functional model is currently available for viewing in the Netherlands’ Maashorst wildlife reserve. It can also be inspected with a scheduled virtual tour.

The post Sliding Cabin Lets in as Much (or as Little) Nature as You Want first appeared on Dornob.

But you know what makes studio apartments so much more livable? Transforming furniture. Nothing short of living like a monk makes quite the same impact. It can be as simple as a table that folds up against a wall or a good old classic Murphy bed. But imagine how much easier it would be to transition from day to night if your bedroom was basically whisked out of the way to reveal a living room whenever you needed it.

The “Cloud Bed” by Ori does just that. So effortlessly does the entire bed glide up into the ceiling by day, it almost feels like magic. You wave your wand —or, in reality, press a button on your phone — and your furniture shifts in response to your whims. That’s it. You don’t have to take off all the bedding and put it away somewhere. In fact, you don’t have to physically move anything at all.

The unit consists of an upper cabinet that hugs the ceiling and contains the bed when it’s not in use, tracks that run along the wall, the bed itself, and an entire living room underneath. When the bed glides down, it fits snugly within the body of the sofa, and it can even rest directly on top of the coffee table. The arms of the sofa become dual bedside tables, and two pull-out drawers beneath the couch offer storage for things like linens and clothing.

Built-in dimmable LED lighting lets you set the mood for evening entertainment or a little reading before you go to sleep. Four built-in outlets make it easy to plug in your devices. The couch fits three people, and the bed comes in either king or queen size, with an eight-inch foam mattress included. It takes just 30 seconds to transition between bedroom and living room setups, and you control it using either the Ori app, Amazon Alexa, or Google Home.

Made of poplar laminate sourced from Spain as well as spruce bed slats and powder-coated carbon steel for the mechanical elements, the bed comes in a single contemporary light wood color. You can even set it to “lock mode” if you want to make sure no mischievous kids or accidental wake-words activate it to raise or lower unexpectedly. A continuous monitoring system watches for potential failures, and the firmware automatically stays up to date.

The Cloud Bed is just the latest brilliant space-saving furniture system from Ori. If you’re in the market for higher-end transforming furniture for studio apartments, you’re going to want to check out their Pocket Office, Pocket Closet, and Studio Suite Slim. The Pocket Office encloses an entire home office setup within what looks like an entertainment system when it’s not needed, and you just roll out the cabinet when you want to use it.

The Pocket Closet works similarly, instead hiding a whole walk-in closet worth of clothes, shoes, and accessories. And the Studio Suite Slim manages to fit all three of these functions into a single unit, making small homes far more adaptable than they’ve ever been.

The post “Cloud Bed” by Ori Glides Up Into the Ceiling to Reveal a Couch first appeared on Dornob.

As complex as it looks, the ARK isn’t too hard to set up. It comes with a lightweight military-grade telescopic carbon fiber frame, which is a pretty big upgrade from your standard tent poles and tarp. Of course, this inflatable frame is what gives it the extra stability it needs to be roomy and comfortable, whether you’re setting it up on the ground or between a few trees. Inspired by kitesurfing technology, the frame also holds the tent erect in stormy conditions. On top of that, a multi-anchor strap system gives you virtually infinite possibilities for suspension set-ups, including using a single hook point to hang it from something like a bridge or branch overhead.

A description on the ARK’s Kickstarter page explains that “a classic camping stretcher weight is usually around five to 10 kg, and it’s bulky. Thanks to our carbon tubes we have reached the weight of 2.9 kg. In addition, our telescopic system allows unparalleled compactness for easy transport. This type of profile has a highly specific mechanical resistance (related to its weight), lightness, rigidity, great resistance to fatigue and vibrations, resistance to oxidation and corrosion, a low coefficient of thermal expansion, and durability.”

Designed for either a comfortable single occupant or a tight fit for two, the ARK measures about 38.5 inches tall and 122 inches wide once assembled, and when it’s in hammock mode, the floor creates three storage areas for all your gear, so it stays dry no matter what’s happening outside. It packs down reasonably small, too, at about 8 by 20 inches for the compression sack and 27.5 inches for the poles (both of which can be strapped to your hiking pack like a normal tent).

Another cool feature is the transparent roof, made of high-quality medical polyurethane to resist extreme temperatures and rain while giving you a view of the stars. Fabric shutters let you close it if you’d rather shut out the morning sun, and stiff Dacron fabric and kevlar reinforcement keep the whole thing from being damaged or punctured by falling sticks and rocks.

As you might expect, the ARK hammock tent costs a little more than something you might pick up at REI. The complete kit, which includes the tent, carbon frame and cam straps, was recently offered as a reward on a recent Kickstarter campaign for €1,895+ ($2,240). Shipping is set to start from France to the United States in April 2021, and it will likely be available on the retail market around that time as well.

The post Ark Adaptable Outdoor Shelter: Part Inflatable Tent, Part Hammock first appeared on Dornob.

In Barcelona’s Eixample district, architects Anna and Eugeni Bach turned a beautiful but highly challenging apartment into a cozy live/work residence where everything has its place. The corner flat has an unusual floor plan featuring four diagonally angled rooms, including a trapezoidal kitchen. There’s minimal square footage to work with, but the historic building features some absolutely stunning architectural details, like tray ceilings, a marble fireplace, and ornate wooden doors.

The owners want to use the apartment as a study for the next 15 years, at which point they’ll retire and live there. That means it has to be both multifunctional and comfortable to live in, while also offering the possibility of hosting their future grandchildren. The living room, entryway, and bedroom extend from the back wall at a 45-degree angle that’s known as “chamfered,” a layout that’s not uncommon in Barcelona’s older neighborhoods.

The biggest and most successful intervention is the plywood built-in cabinetry extending along the flat’s one straight exterior wall, from the kitchen into the living room. The architects envisioned it as a home for all of the apartment’s “services,” including the kitchen cabinets and appliances, bookcases, closets, bathroom, and even a set of built-in stairs leading up to the uppermost level of storage space. Made of smooth, pale plywood and devoid of most visible hardware, this cabinet brings a contemporary feel to the home and unifies its two main rooms.

At the same time, dynamic new flooring subtly separates each space from the next while maintaining a cohesive look. In the kitchen, marble tiles follow the angle of the built-in cabinet, butting up against the straight line of the patterned hallway flooring. The living room, bedroom, and entryway all have their own unique colors and patterns, too, contrasting the clean feeling of the white walls and wooden accents.

“The rest of the house is left practically intact,” say the architects. “The floors, ceilings, and carpentry that were kept in good condition are recovered to establish a careful contrast with the service furniture. A contrast that brings together both the two directions of the chamfer, and the two times of intervention in the history of the house.”

Even if the stairs of the cabinet don’t exactly lead anywhere, since there’s no loft, they still add an interesting graphic element to the design, as does their minimalist ceiling-mounted railing. The cabinet doesn’t just disguise all the little things that would otherwise create too much visual clutter, it anchors the whole apartment. Little design details like the leather pull on the bathroom door and ornate brackets on the mirror above the fireplace are just icing on the cake.

The post Plywood Built-Ins Transform a Tiny Barcelona Studio Apartment first appeared on Dornob.

Now, South African firm Rooi Design has created what might be the least wasteful pavilion ever made. Designed for the Shanghai International Furniture Fair 2019, “Furniture Pavilion S and its Afterlife” takes ordinary materials and shows off what they’re capable of, from their raw, uncut state to their final forms. Each plywood piece used to build the pavilion can be recycled “endlessly,” too — not just into new furniture-showcasing pavilions, but into pretty much any piece of furniture you could want.

All 821 segments of the pavilion are market standard-size (1.22 x 1.22 meter) plywood, the most efficient size for common furniture making applications. Inserted into a steel framework, they form a tall modular structure with nearly 200 open display cubes built into the walls. These openings allow a glimpse into the inside of the pavilion.

“Pavilion S is not just a furniture showroom either, it is a place where one can relax and rest during the exhibition,” say the architects. “The facade of the building uses two different cubes, and the four facades have become window-like in order to display the furniture, giving audiences different views from various angles. The furniture display can be clearly seen, and the transparent facade captures plenty of sunlight, while the 1.22-meter-deep window prevents the sun from shining directly into the showroom.”

“The main structure adopts the mixed-use of a wood and steel structure, while the roof is designed as a hyperboloid (positive and negative arch-beam steel structure roof). The whole building space does not have a column, presenting the whole exhibition hall in a clean, sleek manner. [We believe] that the complexity should be left in the design and technique of the building process while giving the audience an impression that’s clear and easy to understand, bright, and eco-friendly to the city.”

Even more impressive is what the pavilion becomes after it’s disassembled. The architects recycled the entire thing into 410 sets of tables and chairs with almost zero material waste, creating either one hexagonal table or three rectangular chairs from each piece. The tables and chairs can become their own little constellations of seating, joined together in virtually infinite configurations.

Both the end result of the furniture and the process by which it’s directly transformed have especially significant value in the rural Chinese community of Fuqing, where Rooi Design is now located. There, the furniture is set outside the Comprehensive Cultural Service Center for communal use, and the public is given the freedom to rearrange it however they like. In this way, the community gets a direct say in how their public spaces are used, and the process of putting it together makes friends out of total strangers.

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