Design Blog

Maybe it’s because today is Monday, maybe it’s because it’s cold and/or that Turin is really grey in this season, but today I feel a particular need to be cuddled by color… and obviously some pleasing design!

Here is a cartful of brightly colored objects with the ability to warm and stimulate the psyche, please the eye and wake energies… Dedicated to all the people who feel a bit down in this period. Read the rest of this entry »

Translated by Silvia — Lately at the Furniture Fair in Milan we have been able to admire the urban trendy touch on one of the most famous pieces in the history of design: a piercing applied on the sensual lips of DARK LADY, the new tainted black version of the Bocca sofa.

The original model in red created by Studio 65 in Turin in 1975 in homage to Salvador Dalì has become so famous as to be included in the permanent collection of New York’s MoMA, Paris’ Louvre, Milan’s Permanent Design Collection of Italian design and Denver’s Museum of Modern Art.

Strong piece in the “I Multipli” collection of about180 pieces, Bocca is indeed one of the most famous along with Pratone, Cactus and Capitello. Made from cold-expanded polyurethane a dressed in stretchy material, Bocca and its new version DARK LADY, produced in limited edition of only 1000 pieces, are produces by Gufram, the historical Italian company which is now a part of the Charme group (with Cappellini, Poltrona Frau and Gebruder Thonet).

Strangely though… in the States, this mythical and sexy sofa is known as MARILYN, a love seat, so-called by Eleanore Stendig from Stendig, Inc. in New York, the first importer of Bocca on American soil. The reference is clear!
More images in the cut below.

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Translated by Silvia — Surfing around the Internet yesterday looking for solutions for sustainable furnishings, we fell upon FLEXIBLE LOVE. We immediately liked the name and, indeed, it sums up in two words the philosophy which hides behind this project. It is, in fact, a fantastic example of social, ecological and philanthropic design that manages to mix concrete utility and love for the environment and for others.

It is born from a very simple but effective concept: a flexible chair that uses fully the structural properties of honeycomb, applied to the working of an accordion. An incredible result of extensibility, resistance and rigidity, considering that the material used is nothing more than… paper!

A myriad of used sheets of paper that are recuperated, recycled and reused in a completely new way by the new Taiwanese designer Chishen Chiu for an extendible chair that can also be compact and multiform to host anywhere from 1 to 16 people! A group of good friends, a soccer team, a school class…

Take a look at the 2 videos and the images you will find below and in the cut.

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Translated by Silvia — The creativity of the so-called “Reuse Design” lately is forever more appreciate from an earth-friendly and “NON Useless” design point of view, but more importantly even of “RE-useful”.

Here is for you a selection of interesting projects born from the creativity of sensible designers looking for ecologically sustainable solutions, selection which goes to show the fact that reusing is an effective solution and can also be aesthetic. 12 propositions which come, in the most part, from discarded objects, rethought and modelled into a new existence, for a renewed and original desirability.

A source of inspiration and encouragement for our daily recycling.

All details in the link below.

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HAGE Chair designed by Puah Kim Sing

Translated by Silvia – A young and fresh duo, Puah Kim Sing and How Sim, industrial designers for Dremu Design, a newly created studio that’s been active for less than a year. Already 3 important awards received at the latest edition of the Furniture Design Awards in Singapore (FDA 2008): Most Honorable Mention for Mimo & Simi Bar stools, a pleasant couple of stools made of ABS, surmounted by hairpieces made of expanded EVA foam for a fun Playmobil look. Two Young Designer Merit Awards for the 2 seats TORS Chair and HAGE Chair. The last one, of which you can see an image above, is a wooden armchair with essentially balanced lines, made of a single rectangular sheet of plywood, at the centre of which was made an “H” shaped cut, and later curved and modelled for an interesting aesthetic result and robust but light frame, playing with the tension of the material used.

More images and information in the link below.
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Translated by Silvia — The Orange22 studio says yes and strikes again.Founded in the year 2000 by Dario Antonioni in Los Angeles, this Californian laboratory of creativity immediately gained itself some illustrious clients and recognition. Last year, it launched Botanist, a collection of indoor and outdoor furniture, the first of which is tainted pink with the “Pink Limited Edition” in favour of the battle against breast cancer (all images under the cut). The latest issue is “Blank Canvas”, a social design project in which 8 world famous designers were involved for the first edition, from Milton Glaser (the creator of the iconic logo “I heart NY”) to the omnipresent Karim Rashid, from Ives Behar (an idol of ours) to the Italian duo of Massimo and Lella Vignelli.

You will find the images of the Botanist collections and more information in the cut below.

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Translated by Silvia — A touch of moon light for furniture which reminds us of the Thai Full Moon Parties at Ko Phangan down the Haad Rin beach, and of full-moon summer nights from when we were kids, rocked by a story and the hypnotic sound of the sea.

Fullmoon is born from the creativity of the Greek designer Sotirios Papdopoulos for the Italian company EnneZero from Pordenone (the same one that created the furniture collection for Giuseppe Canavese, dedicated to the fascinating and sensual Valentina of Guido Crepax): a 24 piece limited edition piece of furniture with luminous special effects that recreates the luminescence of the full moon thanks to an ecologically safe varnish (ELI: “ecolightinside” created by Papadopoulos himself) of a gelatinous consistency. Thanks to the addition of a special ecological power, it takes on light-in-the-dark properties, to give the home the suggestive lunar influxes to which Man and nature have been attracted since the dead of time.

This novelty will be on show at the temporary SOHO gallery that will be held during Milan’s Furniture and Design week, for the “dEMOsign” exhibition from the 18^th to the 20^th of April 2008.

More pictures in the cut below.

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Translated by Silvia – Designers of Frank O. Gehry’s calibre (since the beginning of the 70’s) and recently ever more representatives of the new generation of industrial designers from the whole world have brought forward new materials like cardboard, scruff paper and polystyrene for creative experiments in the field of furniture, often winking back to sustainability.

And it is to their seating solutions, obtained from economic or recycled materials, that we are dedicating this post.

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Jin-Hui Kim’s Space Book

Translated by Silvia — A fairy-tale inspired suggestion, with a touch of dreaminess that reminds us of the atmospheres in Michel Gondry’s “The art of dreaming”: Space Book, a huge human-sized 3D book! When looking through it, one is welcomed by inviting, entirely furnished environments.

Who knows if more will be made from more resisting materials, that will work the same way as three-dimensional books, off of designer Jin-Hui Kim’s concept. They could become an effective and poetic furnishing solution for improvised guests or even just to live with a touch of extra fantasy in our everyday domestic lives.

In the cut below you will find more pictures of the Space book and 3 beautiful videos dedicated to the fabulous world of pop-up books with an interview of Robert Sabuda, a real paper engineer, made by the Wall Street Journal.

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Translated by Silvia — We bring you the following news that came to us from the Doppiospazio design studio on what you will be seeing in a few weeks at the Milan Fuori Salone at Furniture Fair of 2008 (N.d.DB):

Oppure is a line of contemporary objects and furniture made from cardboard and to be used and lived in: produced by unique and unmistakeable design, all perfectly coordinated between them.

Oppure gives modernity to an already current material, such as cardboard, visibly lightweight but decidedly resistant, the use of which gives multiform creations a complete skill of constructive perfection.

The furniture and objects of the Oppure line distinguish themselves, emerge, surprise: whilst the essentiality of the volumes liberates fantasy, the elegance of the geometric shapes interprets the constant dialogue between art and design, with a definite touch of eclectic energy and affective technique.