Designer and architect Reinier de Jong has just released the versatile REK coffee table. The table grows and adapts to your needs. For example, when you’re not entertaining, perhaps you’d like to close it up, but when guests come over, you might want to move the sliding parts outwards to accommodate extra drinks and plates. Or, you can keep the sliding sections and store magazines and other things underneath.
Charlotte Lancelot partnered with Gandia Blasco’s GAN division on a new collection of rugs launched at this year’s Maison & Objet show in Paris. Using cross-stitch patterns, Lancelot reinterpreted an age-old traditional craft into something completely new and exciting.
Sticks is a cabinet system designed by Gerard de Hoop that is made of boxes in four different widths and four different heights, standing on one leg. Since each Stick’s height and width can vary there are tons of fun combinations to create your own custom sideboard or wardrobe.
We met Spanish-born industrial designer Vicente Garcia-Jimenez, who now works out of Udine, Italy, on our trip to the lighting company Foscarini in Venice this past fall. In addition to having designed three pendants lights for Foscarini (Le Soleil, Fields, Big Bang), Garcia-Jimenez has also designed numerous other lamps, as well as sculptural and functional furniture pieces. He also works in ephemeral architecture and brand installations. He recently earned the Elle Decor International Design Award by the magazine’s Spain edition. For this week’s Friday Five, Garcia-Jimenez shared images that represent the starting point for some of his designs. He says, “All these pictures inspire me to think about concepts in my work. Every picture, if you observe well, is fantastic, rich with beauty, fascination, and magic.”
Spanish company BM makes some of the coolest furniture for babies all the way through young adults. Their original designs are made for all types of young people and will grow with the child through the years until you’re practically married. The pieces have clean, modern lines and can be personalized in the color or colors of their choosing. You can mix and match the pieces depending on the room size and age of the child. All of the designs are contemporary and timeless, easily be transformed into the next stage when your child outgrows it.
One of the stand-out pieces at Maison & Objet for me was Doreen Westphal’s concrete lace curtain. Not only visually stunning, it plays with our conception of gravity, delicately suspending something we perceive to be very heavy in mid-air.
It’s been a while since we featured Palette Industries – a few years in fact…
They’re new “electrifying” Nanton Coat Rack caught my eye. Designed to look like a giant transmission tower, which is often something regarded as an eyesore, the coat rack celebrates the sculptural design that carries important information from one place to the next — connecting us all.
Tom Dixon was born in 1959 in Sfax, Tunisia and moved to England when he was four years old. Having been educated in London, and completed a six-month stint at Chelsea Art School, a career in music followed before a motorcycle accident provided him with the time and welding skills that would lead to his design career — a career that has produced some extraordinary designs we’ve come to know and love.
Chloe Scadding is a young designer that creates high-end textiles used for fashion and interiors. Her combined use of contemporary and traditional techniques, along with her creative use of materials, makes her work innovative and original. She pushes the boundaries of what textiles normally are and what they can be — truly unique. Her latest work consists of printed and laser cut wood and fabric that was exhibited at Designersblock London in September 2011.
Furniture Factory is a pine wood furniture collection by Dutch designer Lucas Maassen and his three sons. Maassen employs his sons to paint each piece of handmade furniture. As per their contact, they each get paid 1 Euro for every piece they complete. They are limited to three hours of work per week, which is all that is allowed under Dutch laws. In order to meet the production time frames, they must paint rapidly which results in the look of each one-of-a-kind piece.
