Sometimes sustainability comes in the form of adaptability, making objects able to accommodate evolving styles or tastes. Polish design studio Emocja had transformation in mind when creating the Bufet Filcowy sideboard. A sleek black panel creates a canvas of some 4000 holes laid out dot-matrix style. Felt pegs of any hue (not unlike cigarette filters) can be arranged into infinite patterns.
Worrying that you don’t think about death enough in your day-to-day life? Pratt student Charles Constantine is looking to change this and inject a bit of morbidity into the daily routine, with his new design for a coffee table coffin. On display in the Pratt Institute student design booth at BKLYN Designs, this ‘Coffin Table’ is a typical coffee table which packs a punch when it comes to storage. Not only can it store books and other knick-knacks like personal mementos, but its ultimate goal is to store YOU - or what remains of you - when you pass on to the next life.
Designer Alain Bertreau creates simple furniture that cuts out excess materials and effort, leaves an overall serene and minimalistic impression, and packs light. We’ve covered Bertreau’s Instant Chair and his Modular Fence Chair but we only just glanced at his latest project, the Cover pouf, and it deserves a second look. Cover challenges our notion of package design by turning a cardboard box into the base of a waste-free pouf that is fun, functional and easily recyclable.
Fernando and Humberto Campana, the Brazilian brother design duo, have long been known for their unique combination of craft-meets-contemporary, recycled-meets-high design furniture. This past summer, they debuted their latest creations, called TransPlastic, at London’s Albion Gallery, which showcased their wicker and plastic crafty yet modern furniture designs. We love the super-cool take on a vernacular form, made hip and new using traditional materials in a cocoon-like encasing technique.
“Annie” is a shopping cart turned into a comfy cute chair from reclaimed design gurus Reestore. We’ve all seen old decrepit shopping carts left by the side of the road, and it is a sad, sad sight. Thats why we are touched to see UK designer Max McMurdo taking an interest in these old cast-offs and restoring them to life by turning them into bright and cheery furniture.
We love designers who get their inspiration from the unexpected, and we love transforming, 2-for-1 furniture even more! Check out the Caterpillar, a flexible piece of furniture inspired by bicycle chains. Why settle for just one position, when Anna Bullus’s Caterpillar lounge chair can be maneuvered into at least 14 different positions. With such flexibility, its easy to find a position that fits your comfort.
Martino Gamper has a penchant for furniture: to be specific, chairs. In his project 100 Chairs in 100 Days, he takes apart a mix of discarded and systematically collected pieces found on London’s street corners (or sympathetic friends’ lounges and living rooms) over a period of two years, disassembles and then reworks them, creating unique, functional chairs that blend the “stylistic and structural elements of the found ones.”
Here’s a cute convertible crib with a modern aesthetic and the flexibility to remain useful as your baby becomes a toddler. The Oeuf Crib will take your newborn through their toddler years with the Toddler Bed Conversion Kit, turning the super cute crib into a modern bed for your growing little one. We love this approach to sustainable design- designing for changing needs and delivering stylish function for years to come.
In its quest for ‘bigger and better’ technology, mankind is facing a mountain of expanded foam pieces and polystyrene packing material used to protect items during handling. Tom Ballhatchet, a recent graduate from the Central St Martins’ MA in Industrial Design, has come up with a simple and utterly plausible solution. Rather than throw away the packaging and leave nature (and a few hundred years) to deal with it, Ballhatchet’s concept allows the user to slide foam casing apart after delivery and reassemble the parts to form a neat self-contained entertainment stand with built in cable management system.
Here’s a brilliant idea that leaves us wondering - why didn’t we think of this first? Despite our penchant for 2-in-1 furniture, we’ve never seen anything quite like this before. Regardless of attempts to be organized in the modern world, most of us continue to be ashamed of one (or eight, in my case) junk drawers around the house- black holes filled with old receipts, pens, and random trinkets. But now you can flaunt your junk drawer with Unicraft Joinery’s simple yet brilliant under-the-staircase drawer solution.
Molo Designs’ flexible honeycomb paper furniture has been a long time favorite of Inhabitat, starting back when we first discovered them in 2005 at ICFF, all the way to the Inhabitat Editors Choice Award they won at last year’s design week. And now they’re adding another item to their stellar resume- they’re one of the participants in the upcoming HauteGreen exhibition and our next sneak peak!
This isn’t a new idea by any means: we’ve showed you expandable honeycomb folding chairs before from Molo and Charles Kaisin Design. However, the joy of watching this video makes us realize that it takes motion picture to really express the beauty of this great design idea - photos just don’t do justice. The panache with which this dude unfolds and refolds the chair in the video (plus the funny canned “oohs and aaahs” of kids in the background) make this particular foldable honeycomb chair very appealing. You must watch the video!
Folding chairs are great in theory, but most traditional designs are often bulky and unwieldy in both folded and unfolded form — defeating the whole point of impromptu seating. Now Belgian design company Materialise.MGX has solved this folding chair dilemma with their beautifully designed One Shot Stool. With a little help from rapid prototyping production, they’ve created a chair that gracefully twists from a narrow staff into a functional stool in a matter of seconds. In the folded position, the One Shot Stool is barely larger than a walking stick, making storage and transport a breeze. Once unfolded, it provides a sturdy little seat that is as functional as it is engaging.
There’s something so identifiable and charming about Dutch Design. Tejo Remy, one of the first and most influential members of the Dutch Design group Droog, has recently split from the collective to launch a project-based firm called RemyVeenhuizen with cohort Rene Veenhuizen. Their Leaf Project, whose cascading waterfall of leaves create a fluid series of shelves, benches, and wall coverings, is a great example of witty, innovative, and engaging design. We love the flora motif made structural and functional.
Alain Bertreau’s Instant Chair is a plywood transformer chair that folds down into one small flat sheet for storage, but pops into a sturdy seat in a matter of seconds. Using the latest panel cutting technology, the affordable Instant chair uses only a couple square feet of plywood. Berteau’s economy of means and materials is a refreshing change from the “more is more” mentality of everyday consumer furniture.
Alain Berteau, architect, interior designer, and product designer has designed some fabulously efficient chairs that are noteworthy both for their ingenuity and frugality of material. The Fence Chair effectively utilizes a single angle that allows it to be packed tightly for shipping and, once assembled; the individual chairs can be linked to form continuous seating for a larger group.
It’s been a while since we talked about compact habitats, but it’s one of our favorite topics. Efficient use of space is the best way to maximize your living quarters. It helps you conserve resources, keep your life organized, and enjoy clutter-free surroundings. Bonbon Trading’s got compact down pat with their Doc sofa/bunk bed unit. The single couch swings easily into two separate spots for resting your weary head. That’s smart furniture.
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We love a flat-pack design - it’s easy to transport, unpack and assemble (usually). But once it’s out of the box, most flat-pack furniture is pretty much the same as the standard 3-dimensional. If you ever wish you could occasionally revert back to two dimensions for easy storage, you’ll enjoy the Zebra Chair by designer Dieter Paul. You’ll like it even more because it’s made with renewable beech wood and recyclable aluminum.
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With tomorrow being the all-American sunshine-basking, BBQ-eating, firework-watching extravaganza of the year, we thought it apt timing to feature an innovative lounge chair idea. Designer Sascha Akkermann has devised an ingenious aid for summertime relaxation. His Poissonmobile functions both as a mat (organic picnic anyone?) and a tres elegante chaise lounge, perfect for profiling in your preferred outdoor envirornment. And when you’re done, roll it up and just tuck it away next to your beach towel. It’s that compact.
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They say that mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery….
Some people take IKEA’s Do-It-Yourself ethos very seriously! By ignoring the retailer’s assembly instructions, designer Kieren Jones and artist Joe Scanlan offer some amusing twists on the Swedish chain’s nearly ubiquitous off-the-shelf designs.
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As fans of flatpak construction, we are intrigued by the new Itbed design from It Design. Made from folded 7mm thick cardboard, the accordion folded cardboard bedframe is easy to collapse and store away, making it a perfect guest-bed for unexpected visitors. While we are a little suspicious that this design really is as simple as it looks - i.e. merely a stack of folded cardboard - we have to hand it to It Design for trying to market this simple space-saving take on the fold-away bed.
Being a cartography buff, I was immediately taken by the topographical landscape of this NONdesigns table. The TOPO table consists of a corian surface (standard in kitchen countertops) interrupted by plastic inserts that have been molded over rocks, creating irregular miniature landscapes in your furniture. The inserts can be placed either face up or down, so that they form little hills or valleys that can be filled with soil and plants.
Anyone who reads Inhabitat regularly will know that we are suckers for furniture with foliage. Julian Lwin has caught our attention before with his fabulously green, wheatgrass-studded Galapagos Coffee Table. Now the Brooklyn based designer is raising the bar again with his new biodegradable BioTube Bench. Thats right - we said it: BIODEGRADABLE FURNITURE!
Sunday night we attended the Mobile Living event, which proved to be a smashing example of a well-conceived hybrid exhibition. The theme “mobile living” took a comprehensive view, including not just mobile homes, but cars (of which there were two new models on the floor), furnishings, and supposedly even apparel, though we didn’t see it.
As far as flexible furniture goes, the folding chair is as old as they come, the first one dating back literally thousands of years. You don’t expect to see much innovation in such a well-established category, but Dror Benshetrit of Studio Dror has managed to invent something new.
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