Furniture | Inhabitat

Michelle Kaufmann Tours Twitter’s New Eco-Friendly Office

Michelle Kaufmann, one of our favorite design heroes, just took a tour of social media giant Twitter’s brand new eco-friendly office space in downtown San Francisco, and we’ve got all the sweet details and pics! We’re super jealous of the Twitter team’s plush sustainable furniture and fabulous design aesthetic conjured up by the very talented Sara Morishige Williams, who happens to be the wife of Twitter CEO, Evan Williams (@ev). Working for a hot internet company certainly has its perks – some of which are a bird’s eye view of San Francisco, eco-friendly and non-toxic finishes, playful and inspiring decorations, and your very own DJ booth.

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Upcycled Ottoman Made From Coffee Bags

by Dan Mendes, 11/11/09

This smart Upcycle Ottoman by Gus* Modern is made of repurposed jute bags that were once used to carry organic fair trade certified coffee. Produced in a limited quantity, each piece is unique and shows the branding and markings of the bags used in the process. No word if they still carry that wonderful coffee scent, but you can still identify which company produced the beans and where they came from.

+ Gus* Modern

Recycled Paperpulp Cabinet by Debbie Wijskamp

by Moe Beitiks, 11/03/09

It never ceases to surprise us that much of good, sustainable design is also deliciously fun. Take Debbie Wijskamp’s paperpulp cabinets, for instance. They are what their name implies: drawers and shelves made out of pureed paper mache. And while I want to write sophisticated sentences with phrases like ‘materials reuse’ and ‘resource conservation,’ I just can’t help thinking about how glorious it must be, in a third-grade sort of way, to mash paper into furniture. Wijskamp’s process validates these daydreams.

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Recycled Bowling Lane Furniture is Right up Our Alley

by Evelyn Lee, 11/02/09

An abandoned bowling alley finds a second life in this beautiful series of furniture by LA-based designer/woodworker William Stranger. Crafted from reclaimed strips of wood salvaged from a local defunct Tava Lanes Bowling alley, the collection springs to life in a variety of forms including a series of wall hangings and a low coffee table.

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Zombie Chair Ressurected By Hongtao Zhou

Zombie chair! Out for your wood scraps! Oozing sawdust and pure carnage! Designer Hongtao Zhou, who we found playing with ice, decided to get Holiday on a broken, abandoned chair he found on the streets in Madison, Wisconsin. The result: chair of the undead, risen from the swamp and demanding the chance to sit in your living room looking creepy. Zhou created the drippy effect with …

Fabulous Flatpack Furniture

Over at TreeHugger we are saps for furniture that can slide under your door; flatpack isn’t just made by IKEA. Designers like Eric Ku are doing it with humor, inventing a flatpack alphabet – his Flatpack Chair is pretty self-explanatory. In Japan, Keiji Ashizawa channels Marcel Breuer with a steel flatpack cantilever chair that slides under the door. Read on for more examples of cutting-edge flatpack furniture.

Bel & Bel Upcycles Vintage Vespas into Office Furniture

With so many slick electric motorcycles on the horizon, it’s getting increasingly difficult to justify the use of polluting, petroleum-powered older models. But instead of sending old Vespas to the trash pile, Spanish design studio Bel & Bel has a more creative solution: turn the stylish relics into snazzy pieces of furniture!

Hangeliers: Clothes Hanger Chandeliers by Organelle Design

Clothes hangers are clogging our landfills at a rate of nearly 8 billion per year. We’ve recently brought you designers who have been developing brilliant ways to tackle the problem through eco-friendly materials and innovative new designs. Now industrial designers Alex Witko and Courtney Hunt at Organelle Design have hit upon another great idea — Hangeliers, wonderful chandeliers made from off-the-shelf plastic and wood hangers.

The Kitchen of the Future Today

The kitchen of the future was going to be so high-tech. Frigidaire’s Dream Kitchen of Tomorrow had it all; an IBM punch card recipe file, automatic dispensing and online TV ordering. And that’s not all – read on as we take a look at several extraordinary retro-futuristic kitchens to see how they’ve withstood the test of time.

Rocking Chair Uses Motion to Power Attached OLED Lamp

The serene back-and-forth movement of a rocking chair is nothing if not relaxing. It can also be useful and productive, according to Rochus Jacob. The designer’s Murakami Chair, a winner in designboom’s Green Life competition, uses the kinetic energy produced by rocking to power an attached OLED lamp.

Art and Design Converge at the 2009 London Design Festival

One of our favorite shows from the 2009 London Design Festival was Corn Craft, a beautiful showcase of sustainable materials hosted by Gallery FUMI and Studio Toogood. Held in Gallery’s FUMI’s personal live/ work space on Hoxton Square, the exhibition hit all the right notes with tactile, emotional art-design pieces by Max Lamb & Gemma Holt, Nacho Carbonell (above) and Raw-Edges Design Studio.

Envi: Composting Trash Can Provides Urban Greenery

By now you have probably heard that composting helps make a garden green because it is an effective way to deliver nutrients to plants and reduce food waste. Previously we featured the Jarst planter, which makes composting food waste in your home easy with a side compartment that can distribute the compost directly to the plant soil. Here, we see this idea transform into something to fit the city scale. With Envi, industrial designer Julien Bergignant, proposes a concept for a city trash can outfitted to collect and then process public food waste, all while adding some green texture to the city landscape.

‘Baby in Table’ Furniture Design Evolves as Children Grow

Parents are all too aware of the revolving door of quickly outgrown furniture that goes hand in hand with raising a child. Incessantly purchasing furniture is taxing on both the environment and the wallet. Designer Oji Masanori’s ‘Baby in Table’ is a clever alternative that is both stylish and sensible, as it changes in function as your …

Odds & Ends Recycled Furniture Changes the Value of Trash

Odds & Ends, Bits & Pieces is a beautiful four-piece furniture set made entirely out of re-purposed materials. Designed by Inhabitat favorite Jo Meesters, the spring-colored furniture was crafted using a variation of upholstering and weaving techniques and is an amazing transformation of 34 discarded wooden beams and 16 leftover blankets.

Copenhagen Design Week: It’s A Small World After All

One of our highlights from Copenhagen Design Week 2009 was a well-curated exhibit of new Danish design titled It’s a Small World. The show asks itself how Danish design is reacting to the challenges wrought by globalization, climate change, and technology, and the result is a rather extraordinary and intriguing attempt to encapsulate the energy of contemporary Danish design.

Green Design Highlights from Copenhagen ShowHow

New projects on display at Copenhagen’s ShowHow promise innovations in everything from zero-carbon building practices to sustainable manufacturing

Copenhagen Design Week 2009 Kicks into Gear!

Fans of fine Scandinavian design rejoice – Copenhagen Design Week is currently taking Denmark by storm and Inhabitat is on the scene to bring you all of the freshest designs and most exciting events! Running from August 27 – September 6th, this annual celebration of social and environmental design explores cutting-edge ideas, products, and services that stand to change the way we live. From the …

Recycled Skateboard Stools Transform Thrashed Boards to Treasure

Skateboards these days are amazing examples of graphic design, and some are practically objets d’art – what a shame that they should to go to a landfill after the boards have lost their pop! Thankfully, Pennsylvania-based Deckstools is here to keep art from the trash heap and to add style to your pad with their striking line of furniture made from reclaimed skateboards.

Cassette Tape Lamps Add Warm Analog Glow to Any Room

Although they may hold nostalgic value for some, cassette tapes are bulky, have poor sound quality, lack large format album artwork, and a stacked up collection of them just doesn’t have the je ne sais quoi as a crate full of vinyl. To keep this 80’s technology out of the landfill, ooomydesign has used old cassette tapes to create a series of gorgeous glowing lamps.

Lawnge Chairs: Grassy Green Park Lounges in the Netherlands

While most of us are delighted by the idea of bringing the outdoors in, we are equally excited by the concept of bringing the indoors outside! These “lawnge chairs” get the job done. Designed by artist Lisette Spee in collaboration with architect Tim Van Den Burg, the playful seats are part of a series of lounge chairs created for public spaces in Valkenberg Park in Breda, Netherlands.

Ubico Studio’s Quirky Legged Cabinets Made From Reclaimed Wood

If you are looking for a cabinet that is every bit as interesting as the trinkets that it contains, search no further. Open since April 2008, Tel Aviv-based Ori Ben-zvi’s Ubico Studio gives the world a refreshing take on repurpoused objects with his beautiful ready made products. His study of function, material and form is evident with their legged cabinet line – the twist is …

Varian Designs’ Reclaimed Furniture Fuses Old with New

Old bequeaths new in Varian Designs‘ beautiful reclaimed furniture, which blends found materials and craftsman techniques with a modern aesthetic. Each piece in this sustainably crafted line is finished using all-natural old-world techniques, and extra close attention is paid to the details and joinery. In the Bartizan Desk pictured above, wood and steel are artfully brought together with the addition of a …

Marmol Radziner Prefab’s Hollywood Hybrid Takes Shape in the Hills

Pre-built homemakers extraordinaire, Marmol Radziner Prefab were in the news this week once again introducing their newest custom prefab home. High up in the hills above Los Angeles sits the new Hollywood Hybrid, a 2576 sq. ft. sustainable, modern prefab home with killer views and a minimal carbon footprint. Inhabitat went up to the site where the home was being built for a peek.

MotoArt Recycles Airplane Parts Into High-Flyin’ Furniture

We’ve seen designers recycle airplane parts to create desks, tropical eco-hotels and a hostel, and now we can add couches and beds to the lofty collection! MotoArt is a team of designers who transform airplane parts into sleek, highly polished modern pieces of furniture. Based in Los Angeles, the 6 person design crew creates an impressive line-up of upcycled furnishings, sure to please every airplane enthusiast’s flight of fancy.

Silla Guarda 2 in 1 Chairs Shed Their Skin for a Surprise

Imagine inviting a dinner party of six into a formal dining room with only 3 chairs. The horror! Well, it’s really no problem with the Guarda Inside-Out Chair by Zanic Design. At first glance it’s a sleek, modern piece that is so slim, it can’t possibly have room to hide a box of chocolates, let alone a whole other chair. That is unless the other chair is molded right around the first chair like a second skin – hidden in plain sight. When you slide the white outer chair off, it “gives birth” to the inner one nesting doll-style. What a great way to psych your dinner guests out!

Reverse Cushions Made of Recycled Car Foam

We all know that food and water are basic human needs, but what about something as simple as a place to sit? Right now, there is a pressing need for nearly 2 billion basic, low-cost seating units for schools hospitals and houses in underdeveloped countries around the globe. In response to the shortage, students Alon Tal and Fabio Alvarez teamed up with Zilca, a company that specializes in recycled materials, to find a solution. First presented last September at design fair Habitat Valencia in Spain, their senior thesis, the Reverse Project, makes cushions from re-purposed car foam for seating that is easy on the eyes, earth, and the behind!

Butterfly Bamboo Homes Are Hope for Thai Orphans

There is nothing we love more than good design meeting up with a good cause. That’s why we love this student humanitarian design project on the Thai Burmese border: it combines beautifully designed (and super efficient) vernacular-inspired architecture with social responsibility in aiding the plight of Karen refugee orphans. Five students in Thailand are using architecture to make new lives for 24 orphans by providing them with homes to call their own.

Scrap Lab: Furniture Made of Industrial Scraps

Scrap Lab is a group of designers based out of Bangkok’s Kasetsart University’s Architecture program that creates fun and innovative furniture out discarded industrial scraps. The group makes an eclectic variety of furniture, from a funky shaggy lamp to a lounge chair with a quilt-block pattern — all masterfully re-purposing materials that were once considered waste. While their list of materials includes traditional materials such as wood and metal, it also includes less traditional items such as foam and rope. The purpose of the group’s work is to not only create physical products, but also to collect research on how discarded materials can be used effectively to design functional and aesthetically pleasing pieces.

Living Lawn Chaise is a Grassy Human Transporter

Talk about bringing the outdoors in! This Chaise Lawn Chair is perfect for citydwellers who want that fresh cut grass feeling without the hassle of a full lawn. Designed by Deger Cengiz, the lounger is sure to elicit a chuckle from your friends. And if you really want to show them a good time, cart them around and take full advantage of the human transporter (wheelbarrow) functionality. Note: It is not recommended for use on stairs.

COFFIN SHELVES: Furniture for Life (and Death)

In certain cultures, it’s customary for the dead to be buried with their possessions. For a change, how about being buried in your possessions? That’s the twist that William Warren put on his cheeky Shelves for Life, which function as sleek storage space during a person’s life and transform into, well, an equally sleek coffin for the person when this life comes to a close. Talk about the gift that just keeps on giving!

LIVING FURNITURE: the Pooktre Tree Chair

When we first saw this living, growing Garden Chair we quickly found ourselves captivated by its whimsical nature and perfect union between pure green design and functionality. But don’t be confused. What looks like something straight out of Narnia, is in fact the product of an ingenious method of tree shaping developed by a couple of artists at Pooktre!

Jolyon Yates’ Beautifully Curving ODEChair and Stingray Stools

In the ongoing quest to dovetail sustainable style with carefully sourced materials, it is refreshing when a designer makes it easy to fall in love with and feel good about soulful green design. Add to this, lyrical lines and soft contours that envelope and rock your world, and you have the perfect home furnishings solution. Northumberland designer Jolyon Yates has mastered the art of design poetics and visual lullabyes with his latest Series 3 ODEChair and Stingray Stools. Exquisitely handcrafted from renewable wood that the artist lovingly selects, these are elegant design pieces meant to last for generations, in an ode to form and function.

Solar Powered Machine Spins Furniture Shaped by Sunlight

Austrian designers mischer’traxler have created a solar powered machine that makes an incredible array of furnishings that vary based on how much sunlight it receives over the course of a day. Titled “The Idea of a Tree“, the machine spins spools of thread into stools, benches, containers, and lamp shades that wax and wane as the available sunlight shifts. Variations in weather, the time of year, and other environmental factors create pieces of different shape, color, and size, instilling the furniture with growing, seasonal qualities that mimic photosynthesis.

Junktion Transforms Trashed Furniture into Treasure

As one of Tel Aviv’s most thought-provoking new companies, Junktion, a young, edgy and innovative design studio, is breathing new life into the trash their city has cast aside. Junktion began in 2008 and has made their presence know in the contemporary furniture market with their unique approach to function and unwavering conviction to challenge how people regard junk.

The Best of Kids Design @ the Pratt Student Show 2009

With the chaotic lineup of professional design events that take place throughout the year, student shows are always such a refreshing reminder of the raw talent and ingenuity that future designers bring to the table. The 2009 Pratt Student Show in New York was no exception, and several clever kids designs caught our attention. From a smart children’s chair made out of a slide to a colorful stacking …