Speaking about living in a shoebox! Felice Cohen lives in a studio apartment that measures 12 feet by 7 feet. When faced with the old urban dilemma – space vs. location – she clearly chose location. This beautiful Upper West Side neighborhood is enviable for many. By settling for a tiny 90 sq ft studio, Felice managed to afford it on a budget of $700 (whereas the usual monthly rent for a studio here comes up to $3,600). Check out the video below to see the tricks she used to make the place not only livable but even charming and cozy.
If you are looking for a non-linear solution for your shelving – consider this cool and colorful Parametric Bookshelf from Caterina Tiazzoldi. The unit is custom-built to your liking (you determine three crucial parameters – length, height and color), which is another advantage for us, space-challenged folks. This interactive approach lets you co-create and personalize your shelving, effectively utilizing your living space, no matter how big or small… Clever stuff!
Urban Gardens, one of my favorite blogs, posted this clever thing today. Urbio is a magnetic-backed and modular vertical garden system that can bring beauty and greenery to urban walls. The system includes small, medium, and large vessels or pots, wall plates, and individual wall mount pucks that can connect the pots to each other or mount them to the wall. Urbio is a collaborative conceptual effort of two studios – Enlisted Design and Volare. Designers have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds and bring the product to market.
This inspired piece of design was created by Jiyoung Seo, who is studying at the HDK School of Design and Crafts in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Catalist Shelf is equipped with the silicone flap that not only keeps books in place, but can also serve as a bookmark. ‘My shelves aim to invite the user to interact with its form, – says designer, – they utilize various “play signals” that engage the user to touch, feel, and react to the object… The Catalyst shelf has a thinner layer on the upper part that holds things like books, papers, pens, whatever you want. And can also be used as a bookmark. A bookmark of your favorite page can make this shelf more special for you.’
Photographs taken by Annie Song
Source: Dezeen
French designer Matali Crasset has done it again. His new creation, the Double Side chair, is a fine attempt to make our lives a little easier. The piece holds a double function, with one easy movement it can be transformed into a small desk, that can hold your laptop, writing paraphernalia, lunch etc. ‘At home today the structures are fixed, like a paused video with a paused picture, life is changing and it’s in movement and it reactivates the video so to speak. My projects work in the interstices of the activities, in passages between one paused picture to another in order to reattach them to one another and to renew the movement and the action in between the spaces,’ – Crasset says. The Double Side chair will be presented as a part of Danese exposition during the Salone del Mobile 2011 in Milan. 
