Shelve your "bigger than a breadbox" jokes—literally. The BrickBox, a storage unit made from marine grade birch plywood, can be used a shelf, a room-divider, or even as porous furniture.Each unit has cut-out handles and nylon connectors that can lock into the grooves of other units without the... View full entry
Are you currently working on a furniture project that you're yearning to showcase? Or maybe you're an architect who wants to challenge your skills in a different design discipline. Now's your chance to submit your ideas to the 2016 VMODERN Furniture Design Competition! Created by eVolo Magazine... View full entry
postmodernism can be summed up in a single word: Memphis.
Although architectural incarnations such as Graves’s Portland Building in Oregon and Philip Johnson’s Chippendale-topped AT&T Building (now the Sony Tower) in New York generated heated discussion, it was the spectacle of Memphis objects that catapulted postmodern design into the public eye. [...]
postmodern designs, most often from Memphis affiliated names, are gaining market momentum
— blouinartinfo.com
The cycle continues.Related on Archinect:8 Reasons You Will Also Like Postmodern Architecture In 2016Can Helmut Jahn's Thompson Center be saved?Postmodern No 1 Poultry divides architects in debate over recent heritageMore is more: the gaudy genius of the late Deborah SussmanPortland Building still... View full entry
London’s inaugural Design Biennale is set to open at Somerset House this September, based around the idea of Utopia to coincide with the venue’s year-long events programme.
The biennale is headed up by London Design Festival director Ben Evans, biennale director Christopher Turner, former editor of Icon, and London Design Festival co-founder Sir John Sorrell. More than 30 countries are taking part in the event.
— itsnicethat.com
Representing the UK will be the design duo Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby best known for designing the London 2012 Olympic Games Torch and their work with Vitra. Their installation will be curated by London's Victoria and Albert Museum. View full entry
Kahn’s material irreverence and cheeky sense of humor have already amassed him a following, with commissions from luxury clients like Dior. [...]
Kahn’s creations, which range from inflated chandeliers to slouching concrete side tables, bring to mind the playfully haphazard aesthetic of ’90s Nickelodeon cartoons
— nytimes.com
Looking for more ... nontraditional furniture? Check out: A misting mirror, a chair that shoots fireworks, and other material experiments by Soft BaroqueScreen/Print #40: Alexandra Lange's "Power Positions" from Dirty Furniture, issue #2Between art and design: rethinking function with Hand Job... View full entry
The "Mom" chair is a kid-sized acrylic seat with an opening on top where kids can drop their toys. It makes the dreaded toy clean-up exceedingly simple—and looks damn good to boot—but the true genius is in its transparency. Unlike opaque storage systems, toys can be easily spotted and dug out from within its clear walls. — Fast Co Design
Anyone who has lived through the chaos of a child playing (the point of which can seem to be to maximally distribute their toys across a given floor area) will appreciate this inventive, highly functional design by Carlo Contin:For more of Furniture February: "Very refined; it’s like a jewel"... View full entry
To demonstrate an alternate application of their "parking assist" technology, Nissan has outfitted a herd of office chairs to find their own way back to their desks. With a single clap, the chairs swivel and move into position, like the obedient office drones that they are – watch below:Of... View full entry
A joint venture with star Brazilian furniture designer Jader Almeida is bringing a new dimension to the luxury furnishings brand Artefacto. For Paulo Bacchi, the 47-year-old Brazilian CEO of Artefacto USA and brand advisor to Artefacto Brazil, the curvy seats, low round wood tables, minimalist lighting fixtures, and other iconic designs of the 35-year-old Almeida add a young, cosmopolitan flair to his company and its stylish, sustainably sourced, mansion-worthy wares. — Ocean Drive
Jader Almeida is a Brazilian designer born in the state of Santa Catarina in 1981, where he still maintains his office. Educated as an architect, Almeida has made a name for himself in the world of furniture design, garnering numerous awards.In this interview, Almeida talks alongside Paulo Bacci... View full entry
In line with this month's "Furniture" theme, I speak with Galen Cranz, an architecture professor at UC Berkeley specializing in body-conscious design. Cranz is trained in the "Alexander Technique" – a method for "correcting" the body's poor habits of movement, that can limit self-awareness in... View full entry
Fittingly for Furniture February, Alvar Aalto would have turned 118 this month, which has prompted Archinect to celebrate his paradigm-defining designs. We're not the only ones: the existing Alvar Aalto Museum and the Museum of Central Finland will be getting an extension (the winners of the... View full entry
Shanna Tellerman wants to help you redecorate your home. She’s not a designer, furniture aficionado, or personal shopper. She’s the founder and CEO of a company called Modsy that rolls all of the aforementioned jobs into one mobile app to make redesigning a room easier (and more fun) [...]
What makes Modsy different from the handful of other home design tools out there is that it actually lets users see designs in the context of their own homes—and its renderings are utterly realistic.
— Fast Company
The architecture of the app seems effective, if a bit out of touch with the on-demand expectations of today's digital consumer. After signing up, a user is asked to complete a quiz to figure out their aesthetic and then upload some photos of the space in question, along with its dimensions.About... View full entry
...the pieces in [Wurm's] latest show, Lost, appear as thought your living-room furniture took a nightmarish turn for the worse.
Wurm modeled all of the objects in clay before distorting their form by stomping, smashing, or walking on them (the latter method can be seen clearly in the footprints on the torn-up chaise lounge). Wurm then cast the deformed pieces in bronze or polyester and painted [them].
— Fast Co Design
A few pieces from the show:February is furniture month here on Archinect! Send us your furniture musings, interviews, reviews, designs, projects and investigations for review to be featured on our site. The open call for submissions is effective immediately.More details here.To satisfy your fix... View full entry
Terkel interviewed creative visionaries like Buckminster Fuller, Charles Eames, Marc Chagall and Maurice Sendak. In this newly digitized clip from 1977 ... Terkel speaks to furniture designer George Nakashima, known to many as the father of the American craft movement. [...]
A trained architect, Nakashima explained to Terkel why he preferred to be called a “woodworker,” and recalled honing carpentry skills from a master woodworker he met while interned at a camp in Idaho during World War II.
— qz.com
You can listen to the complete 51-minute interview on SoundCloud here.More recent news in furniture:Now is the time to invest in mid-century Scandinavian furniture, experts sayForget standing desks – just wear your chairModular benches provide maximum functionality and versatility for Lake... View full entry
Prices of chairs, tables, sofas and other pieces, particularly those of Scandinavian origin, from the late 1940s through the early 1960s have increased dramatically in recent years and show no sign of falling soon...[It] reflects an increase in overall real-estate activity, which in turn has driven a demand for furniture. The economy has been strong enough to drive the auction market for high-end furnishings and artwork to new highs... — The Wall Street Journal
February is furniture month here on Archinect! Send us your furniture musings, interviews, reviews, designs, projects and investigations for review to be featured on our site. The open call for submissions is effective immediately.More details here.More on Archinect:Forget standing desks – just... View full entry
Japanese researchers have developed a wearable chair called Archelis that can help surgeons when they are performing long surgeries. [...]
The wearer of Archelis will not get full comfort of sitting on a chair but the gadget actually wraps around the wearer's buttocks and legs, providing support that effectively allows them to sit down wherever and whenever needed.
— techtimes.com
Check out Archelis in action (in Japanese) below (h/t BLDGBLOG):More from the world of wearables:Wearable shelters for the hipster nomadVinn Patararin challenges the possibilities of textile architectureMagical Sesame Ring opens gates of public transit View full entry
