When designer Shay Alkalay created his first Pivot cabinet for Arco in 2008, it became an instant hit. The simplicity, paired with the space-saving qualities, earned this piece a well-deserved recognition. It even received the Dutch Design Award, 2008 in ‘best residential product’ category. Recently the Pivot family expanded. The new Pivot desk and vanity table were added to the line. The objects exhibit the same minimalistic approach to space and form. And because the drawers are hinged together, they can be opened at the same time, – a convenience most traditional cabinets cannot match.
Source: Design Milk
Have you ever been tired of neat surfaces, familiar shapes and rows upon rows of identical drawers? After all, ‘variety is the whatnot of thingamajig,’ as one of my friends likes to say… This furniture collection from Folkform, called Unique Standard, celebrates variety on several levels. Designers Chandra Ahlsell and Anna Holmquist played with shapes, and also with the use of materials. The collection shows what happens when the original material is combined with surfaces that try to imitate its appearance. For example, the piece above, the chest with 18 drawers, was made of Masonite and birch wood. Other combinations include Carrara Marble/marble laminate, granite/MDF, original leather from Danish designer Arne Jacobsen’s Swan Chair/synthetic leather imitation used in car seats. So, you can delight your visual and tactile senses with the contrast between noble and basic, exclusive and cheap, unique and standard.
Source: MoCoLoco
If you are a Harry Potter geek – this piece will appeal to you on several levels. There is something distinctly Potteresque about the whole concept. This unusual cabinet has no shelves, doors or drawers. To store an item you have to push it into the wooden beams, and a solid volume opens up when objects are stored within it. Designer Chung-Tang Ho envisioned the Push and Store cabinet as a sculpture, where your items are participants in the act of creation.
This unusual shelf from Fern Living, called Studio 1, beautifully doubles as a wall decoration. If displayed on a wall in several different sizes and colors, it creates a cute skyline (with the possibility of storage and/or display). You can also use it as a bedside reading nest. It can house your alarm clock, a glass of water and some other small items. The ‘roof’ can serve as a bookmark. With its size and openness, Studio 1 also promotes minimal, clutter free approach to storage.
Source: Better Living Through Design
These cute animal-shaped chalkboard stickers from Coco Boheme are not only fun, but also eco-friendly and reusable. Made from potato starch, they can be applied and reapplied many times. And once they finally lose their appeal, you can simply add them to your compost or discard them, knowing that they will biodegrade nicely after six months. These stickers come in several shapes, some can even be suitable for the grownup quarters. So, no matter who is writing on them, your children or you (or both), – it is a guiltless fun.
This piece was definitely designed with space limitations in mind. Cubox from Elemento Diseno is a horisontal string of boxes that can form several different configurations. The end cabinets can be flipped up, and the whole piece can be transformed into two vertical stacks of two, cutting the required floor area in half. The color scheme is a bit boring (black, white and two gray shades in between), but it makes Cubox even more universal.
Source: Dornob
This cool modular wine rack, called Woo Wine, was initially created by the Warsaw-based designer Sandra Laskowska as a birthday gift for a wine-lover friend. Built from individual wooden or plexiglas hoops, these racks can take as much or as little space as you wish. They can take different shapes too. The hoops can be painted in different colors, which makes them even more customizable. And if you simply run out of bottles to hive (in an infinite Universe anything can happen), the Woo Wine maze can be taken apart and stored flat. Brilliant!
Here is an example of taking a good idea and making it even better. Initially the Window table, created by Eero Koivisto for Offecct, had an inserted colored glass feature that served as a stylish way to indicate the storage area. Now Koivisto went further and replaced the glass with an insertion for flowers and plants. The result is refreshing and chic. The timing is right too. Spring is coming, so it might be a good idea to give those planters another optimistic try…
No matter what kind of opinions you hold on the subject, your cat will always believe that climbing on top of bookcases is awesome. And majestically eyeing the premises from the top shelf is even awesomer. You can enter a painful (and most likely futile) process of imposing restrictions on the cat, or you can embrase the inevitable and give him/her this brilliant thing. Created by belgian designer Corentin Dombrecht, the Cat Library bookcase is made in a shape of a staircase with a built-in sitting basket at its top. The piece is modular, which allows to fit it in any space. According to Designboom, the shelf is intentionally unpainted and is not oiled, so that the surface is not too slippery for cat paws. So, this may be furniture to you, to your cat it is just another toy. But isn’t this true for everything else in your home?
The Stick lamp by Todd Bracher is the minimalist’s dream. Inspired by the walking stick insect, the lamp blends with the surroundings while providing an adequate illumination. This biometric design is also pleasing to the eye – the piece looks both modern and natural. The LED lamp can be pointed in any direction, the metal tubing hides the cord. Elegant, functional, space-saving… This design quite simply has it all.
