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 child grows up. Two pieces of Japanese Beech furniture comprise this evolving design which houses an infant during mealtime (via the cut out square on the tabletop), then becomes a child’s desk, while the chair doubles as a step stool for the entire family. Head to Inhabitots to see all the various ways Baby in Table may be utilized.

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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!

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Post tags: 2 in 1 furniture, alberto villareal, guarda inside out chairs, silla guarda, Transforming Furniture

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!

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Post tags: coffin shelves, repurposed furniture, shelves for life, sustainable shelves, ww.modcom

Alexena Cayless of British design collective Farm Designs recently exhibited her wonderful fly-tipped furniture collection at Eco Age and Beyond the Valley in London. Alexena scours the streets for unloved and discarded furnishings and then gives them a brand new lease of life. These white-washed pieces serves as blank canvases for Alexana, who is interested in the interaction of human memory and furniture.

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Post tags: alexena cayless, beyond the valley, discarded furniture, eco age, farm designs, fly-tipped furniture, flytipping furniture, london design fesival, re-invented furniture, salvaged furniture

Taking the idea of recycling to its logical conclusion, Italian architect, designer and art director Gianluca Soldi presented the Ovetto Recycling Bin, a recycled recycling center, last week at the London Design Festival. Made from recycled polypropylene (the same material used in ropes and carpeting), the bin offers three separate receptacles to make recycling easier and more organized while taking it a stylish step up from those standard blue bins.

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Post tags: gianluca soldi, green design, London Design Festival, ovetto recycling bin, Recycled Materials, sustainable design

Ever come across one of those ideas that is so brilliant and crazy – it makes you wonder why no one has done it before? Artist and interactive designer, JooYoun Paek takes the cake on that front with her recently revealed Self-Sustainable Chair, a wearable piece of furniture which is a dress where the butt inflates into a chair through pumps in the shoes. Paek hopes the provocative art piece will “transform the humdrum experiences produced by routine walking commutes into an amusing interactive performance.” Featured at this weekend’s Conflux Festival, her quirky and intriguing project suggests that rest and walk can be balanced by re-thinking the function of what we wear.


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Post tags: Bubble butt chair, JooYuon Paek, Self-Sustainable Chair: Dress inflates into a chair for your butt, wearable furniture

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.

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Post tags: "green furniture", adaptable furniture, Bufet Filcowy sideboard, Emocja Sideboard, Polish design, sustainable design, sustainable design Poland, versatile furniture

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.

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Post tags: Charles Constantine, Charles Constantine Pratt, coffee table coffin, coffin coffee table, coffin table, eco burial, eco coffin, green coffin, Memento eco coffin, Pratt Institute, Pratt Institute BKLYN Designs, Pratt student designs

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.


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Post tags: Alain Bertreau, cardboard, cover, Design, minimal packaging, no waste, Waste reduction, waste-free

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.


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Post tags: campana brothers, craft furniture, humberto fernando campana, Reclaimed Materials, recycled design, recycled furniture, transfurniture

“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.


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Post tags: ANNIE Shopping Cart Chair from Reestore, Max McMurdo, reclaimed design, reclaiming design, recycled material, Recycled Shopping Cart, Recycled shopping trolly, recycling design, Reestore Recycled Design, Shopping Cart Chair, Shopping Trolley Chair

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.


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Post tags: Bicycle Chain Inspired Piece by Anna Bullus, Caterpillar

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.”

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Post tags: 100 Chairs in 100 Days: Wood, Ariana Mouyiaris, Bean Bag Chair, Martino Gamper

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.

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Post tags: "sustainable furniture", Convertible crib, Inhabitots, Moderntots, Oeuf Eco-friendly Convertible Crib, sustainable baby furniture, sustainable kids furniture, Toddler Bed, Toddler Bed Conversion Kit

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.


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Post tags: Eco TV stand, Furniture made from Packaging, Packaging Furniture, Recycling packaging for furniture, Reuseable Packaging, Tom Ballhatchet, TV PACKAGING TURNS INTO TV STAND