The subtle humour of this piece made me look. Bed Blend, designed by the Netherlander Roy Letterle (aka lero), lives up to its name. A bed and two chars are morphed into one minimalistic piece. The chairs serve as bedside tables and in turn start formation of a headboard with their backs. Both the form and the function of Bed Blend are stripped to their absolute essentials. Even the ‘blending components,’ two chairs and a bed, are quintessentially basic. One simple, rustic idea in all its bareness.
This candy-colored beauty is a collaborative effort of designers Igor Solovyov and Dzmitry Samal. A chair and a chaise lounge in one – a chair longe. The transformation occurs as the ‘lounge’ part slides under the seat via two railing mechanisms located on its sides. The gap in the middle is not only an eye-pleasing accent, it accommodates the steel handle that locks the chair in its position. Fun and robust, this piece fits perfectly in today’s rapidly changing environment. It can be displayed and used in its full lounging glory or ‘tucked in’ for low key gatherings or simply to clear some space.
This is not your average bed with his and her sides, headboard, drawers and things… No. This one is for the brave! Designed by the young Italian Federico Bergese of Light Bulb Lab, Bside bed abandons all traditional attributes. It has no frame, no mattress, and no legs. The business part consists of covered in leather polymeric gel and rests on a single wooden structure. The inside part of the wooden support contains LED lighting strong enough for reading. And because the light envelopes the main part from all sides – it creates the effect of the bed floating in the air… So there you have it – a few elements can create a huge impact. All it took to produce this inspired pice of design were leather, wood, polymer, LED, and a bit of madness.
Since we are on the subject of letters, here is another typographical treat for you, delivered all the way from Helsinki. This funky bookcase is called AAKKOSET, and is suitable for children of all ages. Created by the young Uganda born designer Lincoln Kayiwa, this piece not only makes a strong visual statement, it also provides a versatile storage for your books, CDs, magazines at cetra. Because the letter openings have different shapes, they make for an interesting and dynamic shelving. The letter-free space in the middle can be used as a bulletin board. Neat freaks, who dislike open storage, can even leave the bookcase empty and use it as a room divider. Made from durable fiberboard, AAKKOSET comes in a variety of colors.
Surely, using typography in interior design was done before. But attempting it on such a literate level deserves a ‘high five’ just for sheer boldness. German designer Marc Lauckhardt created a furniture collection that not only resembles type, it seems to be constructed out of big three-dimensional letters. Surprisingly, this made for fairly believable and functional pieces, which proved once again that a well-balanced typeface can do and be anything…
When space is limited each item has to add something valuable to the equation. It can be done by amplifying the function or, in this case, the visual impact. The Bushel Table, designed by the New Yorker Devin Rutz, was not meant for blending with the wall color. It demands the room to itself. The name came from the idea of a bushel of sticks in your hand. ‘If you were to take that bushel of sticks and cut them down on one side a surface would be created,’ – Rutz explains. The other side of the sticks became legs. The holes in the surface add to the random beauty of the piece. They can be used for greenery or simply left alone.
Here is an idea, striking in its simplicity – a coat rack when you need it, an easy to store plank of wood when you don’t. No more piles of guests’ coats in your bedroom during dinner parties. An elegant solution from the Swiss designer Carlo Clopath, called Gardaroba, allows us to deal with the known outerwear situation with grace. The setup process is easy – just slide hooks and legs into the slots. When disassembled, the piece takes only a few square inches of storage capacity. And that is what we, small space dwellers, want to hear…
A single strip of curved plywood was all that was needed to make this home office. Designed to fit even the smallest of spaces, this workstation by MisoSoup studio, incorporates a working surface and a shelving unit in one unusual layout. By wrapping shelves around the desk, designers not only saved some inches, but also made the unit more enclosed and secluded. The bamboo laminated plywood is flexible and light, which makes it a perfect material for the job. Bamboo is also a rapidly renewable material. So, what we see here is an environmentally sustainable design. Not just an eye candy.
So, Marc Haldermann of Dear Bird Design Products heard we liked shelves. And guess what, he put shelves inside the shelves… This neat arrangement is called Dado and represents the idea of storage taken down to its essentials. Various inserts, added to the bigger boxes, are interchangeable. They help us to divide (and conquer) our clutter while adding a rather pleasing color variety to a shelving unit.
Source: Yanko Design
Oh, the peculiar things that drive designers’ fantasy! This time it is an earthquake, or thee earthquake rather. This coffee table, designed by Mexican architect Ricardo Garza Marcos, is called San Andreas and reminiscent of the San Andreas fault, the famous tectonic boundary in California. The sides of the table come apart just like the plates of the earth during a massive natural disaster. Only instead of a gaping abyss, here we have a cheerful color and some useful additional storage space.
