Cycling is a very significant part of the Dutch culture and it has been for many decades. However, an affordable, contemporary Dutch bicycle disappeared from our streets a while ago. The explanation is reasonably simple; a bicycle is a labour intensive product, and for this reason, almost all bicycle manufactures, and with them a lot of other fields of production, moved their production to low-cost labor countries, mostly in South-East Asia. This impressive graduation project by Design Academy Eindhoven alumni Bob Schiller, which he named Epo, aims to revive the local industry and bring production back to the Netherlands. We are very impressed by his design and attached ambition, which also gained him a nomination for the Keep an Eye grant which will be awarded to one graduated student on the 18th of October. [ Continue reading ]
Chamber is an exciting new boutique of limited edition design, objects and art, which opens today in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. The space’s unique concept and retail experience is the vision of Argentinian-born Founder Juan Garcia Mosqueda. Critically acclaimed architectural practice MOS has designed the interior of the space. Taking the Renaissance-era Cabinet of Curiosities as its inspiration, Chamber will be a twenty-first century reliquary for unusual objects and a platform for design experimentation. Every two years, Garcia Mosqueda will choose a different designer or creative to curate the shop’s entire program, bringing their unique viewpoint to Chamber through specially commissioned works, and rare and vintage items. For the inaugural curatorial period, he has selected designers Studio Job, who are working closely with a dynamic group of established and emerging designers and artists to create Chamber Collection #1. [ Continue reading ]
We love elegant design which is boiled down to its core and the Square Wind Bell by the very talented Kouichi Okamoto of Kyouei Design inhabits everything of those elements. The designer, who first gained attention in the world of music at the end of last century and since stretched his spectrum of output significantly, created the minimum wind chime from metal and glass, utilizing the properties inherent in each of the resources used to produce sound. The Square Wind Bell is created out of two iron lower-outs covered in trivalent chrome plating, which are united to every single other by a basic slit in each and every corner, forming a mixed geometry that teeters on the edge of a consuming glass. As one plate catches the wind, the other acts as a excess weight, striking the transparent volume repeatedly and resounding with the action of the wind. Highly sophisticated and elegant. [ Continue reading ]
Last Friday was a very special day. After a lot of hard work over the course of the last couple of months we were finally able to open a next chapter in the AS&Co universe: a tactile space that will be open for the public named Our Current Obsessions. The new space, which also houses the studio, can in many ways be seen as a direct result of what has been created online since the eruption of Another Something in 2009, but with more focus in its purpose. Our Current Obsessions will hybridize the traditional concept of an art gallery with a retail-space, always based around one particular theme in which we will take a deep-dive both off- and online. Located right at the mouth of one of Amsterdam's main canals, it is a little dream come true that finally our love for the ‘beauty of cultures’ can be touched and shared in the analogue world. [ Continue reading ]
Since its foundation in January of this year New York-based WorkOf is changing the way interior designers and consumers connect to independent, locally made home décor by creating a go-to source for direct access to the nation’s independent designers and makers. Founders Charlie Miner and John Neamonitis saw that interior designers wanted an easier way to source independent design, and consumers were interested in furnishing their homes with locally made home décor but neither had a reliable destination to source these pieces and therefore they created the digital platform to provide in this service. Since its launch in January the start-up has grown to include over 40 designers and makers with more than 300 home design objects. During NYCxDesign this last spring, WorkOf debuted the inspirational WorkOf Apartment. Using close to 40 pieces from their partnered designers, the whole apartment installation introduced products from Calico, Souda, Eskayel and Vidi Vixi, among several others, resulting in an amazing overview of their catalogue which is now also offered online. [ Continue reading ]
We love this project by prestigious Oslo-based multidisciplinary studio Snøhetta named The Vulkan Beehive. Set atop the roof of the Mathallen food hall in central Oslo, the honey-colored wooden cabins became home to 160.000 bees this past July, which shows that the little ingenious insects continue to inspire in the creation of great projects. The shape and natural geometry of the honeycomb were key-elements in this project, as the highly inspirational studio created these sculpturesque urban hives in real bee style with a multi-faceted form and hexagonal-patterned façade. Constructed entirely out of a light-colored wood finished with an intentionally honey-reminiscent hue, the hives were designed with an appearance that reflects their purpose of bringing back bees to the city environment of Oslo in an utmost elegant manner. [ Continue reading ]
Last Friday marked the grand opening of the beautiful Richard Sachs exhibition which was designed by House Industries at the Rapha Cycle Club NYC, and will run for the upcoming month. The inspirational exhibition walks through the bicycle builder’s personal industrial revolution from his early days as an apprentice to becoming a modern folk hero in the cycling community. The show highlights the balance of tradition and innovation with which Sachs has built a loyal following and profoundly influenced cycling culture worldwide. House Industries, an internationally-recognized graphic, product and type design firm, has been a long-time supporter of the Richard Sachs program and therefore makes for the perfect partner of this inspirational overview. [ Continue reading ]
The Makinohara, Japan-based architecture firm mA-style finished the design of this extension for a young couple's house next to the main family home in Yaizu last year, but we still find this one of the more elegant designs we have seen in a long time. The house that was extended is an one-storey Japanese-style house with an area of approximately 200 m², a very common house seen in rural areas. The house is large and has many spacious rooms where the whole family can gather and socialize, but the young couple wanted a new quiet space that would ensure them a private area. A simple extension would enable them to seclude, but the connection with the main house might get lost which they wanted to prevent. Therefore, by utilizing the functions for living in the main house, the extension is designed as a minimum living space pursuing distance without losing contact, very in line with the complexity of delicate Japanese social interaction and inherent serenity. Above all it's a space of stunning beauty one sees rarely. [ Continue reading ]
We have been a little quiet about our last couple of Curated gifts, but last week we celebrated the release of already the tenth gift for our subscribers. For this tenth anniversary we collaborated with Rotterdam-based design label Sweatshop Deluxe, which offers young designers the chance to produce limited released of their designs and helped us with the production of The White Rabbit. This porcelain rabbit we created is a design of Lise Lefebvre, a French designer, who is based in Amsterdam. Next to the work she produces with her studio, she also works as the head of education for product design at the Willem de Kooning Academie Rotterdam and she teaches at the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. The exclusive limited editions of the faceted porcelain rabbit were dipped in indigo glazing, giving them an unique beautiful two-toned appearance, as if The White Rabbit just took a little dip in magical water. [ Continue reading ]
Founded by Gabriel Hendifar and Jeremy Anderson in 2012, the New York-based design studio Apparatus has a specialty in creating elegantly robust lighting fixtures. At the time of the foundation Hendifar, a former fashion designer, and Anderson, who worked in PR, had just moved in together in Los Angeles and were unsatisfied with what was available on the market. After relocating the company to New York, Apparatus took off. Design-wise the created aesthetic by Apparatus is the product of playful experimentation with vintage components as well as taking inspiration from the time honored method of American industrial design, aiming to mary both form and function. We particularly love the Pendant and Sconce lamps out of their horsehair series. In the beautiful designs which were presented at last International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in May wefts of horsehair are combined with brass and etched glass to create these amazing and extraordinary lamps. [ Continue reading ]
We love this amazing collaboration between Alexander Wang and Australian Haydenshapes to outfit the latest Soho flagship store's Cage installation. The project features five marble print surfboards, exclusively created by the leading Australian surfboard brand Haydenshapes for this installation. The insanely beautiful marble boards, being also a typical element within Wang’s aesthetic, are suspended from the cage wall, while a monolithic, large black wave sculpted from black sand looms occupies the other area of the space. We just can't keep our eyes of the tremendous boards and their graphic patterns, photographs of unique marble slabs developed by Haydenshapes founder Hayden Cox and Wang himself, which were digitally printed onto silk, then onto the award winning 'Hypto Krypto' boards; to create one of a kind visual art pieces of exquisite beauty. [ Continue reading ]
Recently the first issue of Modern Design Review saw light, a great new magazine that offers a considered and curated insight into modern product and furniture design, art directed by Graphic Thought Facility and under Editor-in-Chief Laura Houseley. In the launch issue of Modern Design Review an insightful overview is given of the state of design today. Published twice a year and distributed internationally, Modern Design Review covers the best of the product, people and theory at the effervescent tip of the contemporary design world. The publication offers a considered and curated insight into modern design: original and creative storytelling, plus numerous of contributions from photographers, writers and designers, are what distinguishes Modern Design Review. The focus lays on ideas and themes, whether they are central or peripheral, committed to exploring modern design with the creativity and curiosity that the discipline deserves. [ Continue reading ]
We really like this project by the Tokyo-based architect Fumihiko Sano, located in the Taito-Kut district of the Japanese capital, which was named En yu-An. The eye pleasing light space functions as the salon and showroom for Maruwakaya, a company which produces monozukuri, meaning craftsmanship or art of design and manufacturing, that links traditional crafts to Contemporary art. The central piece in the space is an eye-catching long narrow counter made from tremendous Japanese cedar, which is augmented through the appliance of lintels, sills, and pillars. The diverse arrangement of the lintels and the pillars in the room aims to make visitors unconsciously sense the variation of the space. Yet the structure does not affect the existing surfaces of the space, it is simply placed inside the room, without being fixated to the walls, floor and ceiling, giving the space a very unique and organic aesthetic and feel. [ Continue reading ]
Today the Amsterdam-based The Playing Circle will celebrate the official opening, or housewarming like they address it themselves, of its latest interesting project called The Loft. On the fifth floor of the beautiful Cristofori building located on the Prinsengracht a fully furnished apartment has elegantly been created in which everything one finds in it is for sale. From design furniture, the vintage accessories, the books on the shelves, to the plants one finds in The Loft: if you like it you'll take it home. The Playing Circle's ambition is to create a whole new home-retail experience in which one walks into an apartment which thoroughly will feel like someones home, but instead of just being able to marvel at it now for one whole month everything the eye meets is actually for sale. [ Continue reading ]
We really like the most recent collaboration by the ever-inspiring publisher and producer of artworks CASE STUDYO, this time with regular collaborator Dutch artist Parra. With the sculpture named ‘Cold’, the Amsterdam-based artist once again translates his unique signature curved post-pop imagery into a beautiful porcelain sculpture. A surreal and hybrid character of a female birdlike creature with hands around the legs looking for warmth. The eye-catching sculpture comes in a screen printed wood box with a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity by the artist, making it another signature high quality addition to the already great catalogue of CASE STUDYO. [ Continue reading ]
From March 26th to May 6th 2014 the first retrospective on the art and design collective led by Piergiorgio Robino, Nucleo, named 'Manifesto' took place in Parisian Hôtel de Galliffet. The exhibition was conceived and realised by the Nilufar Gallery of Milan, and curated by Elena Giulia Abbiatici and Melania Rossi. It was set up under the 'Promises of Art' program, which aims to promote young talents from the ultra-contemporary Italian art scene. Manifesto tells the story of the highly creative collective and its assertions. A thought which translates into action, a meeting at the peak of artisanal and artistic research. Nucleo's work is simultaneously material and conceptual: molded by many hands, it has the ambition to combine three forms of knowledge: theory, practice and production (theoria, pràxis e poiesis). [ Continue reading ]
For the second installment in their Off Map series in which they partner with brands and craftsmen, accessory label Octovo has collaborated with Southern Oregon-based Tilley Surfboards of Jason Tilley. This resulted in an extraordinary series of five custom board designs. Constructed out of hand-shaped foam combined with custom-milled wooden skins, each board has its own beauty, showing both color and the natural beauty of the wood. The boards feature a leash cup made of titanium or bronze and come in a tailored bag made out of UV and water-resistant material. The bags are padded and reinforced at the nose and tail with leather covers for added protection resulting in a utmost elegant collection bringing together craftsmanship and aesthetics. [ Continue reading ]
This inspiring collaboration between Dutch quality wallpaper producer NLXL and designers Studio Job was unveiled last April, during Salone del Mobile. In the collaboration existing patterns from Studio Job's library of icons and images were adapted and extended to compositions of nine meters. Unique and without repeat, the collection reflects a retrospect of the history of Studio Job, which on a material basis was also the case in the design for Land Rover. Studio Job used archetypical drawings, combined as iconographic elements for patterns and compositions, ultimately creating 7 designs: Industry, Labyrinth, Perished, Alt Deutsch, l’Afrique and Withered Flowers, the latter in black and white and in color. These patterns, icons and compositions were originally created amongst others for their own work and projects in design, art and fashion and now applied beautifully as wallpapers. [ Continue reading ]
With a new generation of (indie) game developers rising, slowly more and more elegant games are being created. Metrico, which is exclusive to the PS Vita is another one of those games. It is being developed in our hometown Utrecht by Digital Dream and has some traditional platform game elements which are uniquely based around infographics. It’s an atmospheric puzzle action game that strives to create a unique mindset of its own. The idea was born a few years ago out of the observation how beautiful infographics can look as an art form, which was reinforced by the fact that infographics have become increasingly important in contemporary pop-culture. While they haven’t made their way to videogames yet, Digital Dreams feels there’s a place where they can work exceptionally well. This not just because of their beautiful aesthetic, but also its actively changing data and how that can be visualized. [ Continue reading ]
This week The Travel Almanac presented a great new project named TTA Editions. In each Edition a selected artist, designer or other creative entity is asked by The Travel Almanac to design a product in a specific category which has a more or less direct relation to travel, after which every product will be released in a very limited edition available in select fashion boutiques and through The Travel Almanac website. For the debut Edition, fashion designer Bernhard Willhelm has created a very unique and beautiful Imabari cotton beach towel, which were produced on the island of Shikoku in Japan, each containing 34 individually hand-stitched embroideries. The towel has just been released in an Edition of 20 pieces. [ Continue reading ]
Founded by wine-expert Katharina Riess, Florian Breimesser and Moritz Firchow in 2012, despite living 10.000 kilometer apart, Love Me Los Angeles is not just your average distinguished winery. The brand which was created goes beyond a lot of brands in the field and expresses the shared values of the founders and the universal spirit of seizing a dream and making it happen. A declared passion for locally manufactured and authentic products of highest quality by the three partners led to the release of Love Me Los Angeles's first edition, the Pinot Noir 2009, which is limited to a number of 500 bottles urging its consumer to seize the moment as well, before its gone. The ever-inspiring Deutsche & Japaner translated the philosophy of Riess, Breimesser and Firchow perfectly on a material level, bringing ideas to craft, as they collaborated with the highly talented Sergey Shapiro on the lettering, making the project extremely inspiring on different levels. [ Continue reading ]
Julien Rademaker is one of those people who has successfully translated his love for collecting into a personal blog project named Gevonden op Marktplaats, which gathered a large following rather quickly, making it the most-desirable location on the internet for every Dutch seller to be mentioned on. Julien uses his platform to showcase an ongoing curation of rare and stand-out furniture, objects, art, and other curiosities that he spots on Marktplaats, which is the Dutch equivalent of Ebay. As the digital world still quite lacks the aura of the materialized world, Julien has stretched the horizon of his project once again, after doing his first live event 'Spullen waar we niks vanaf weten' in December 2012, together with architect Samir Bantal he now presents: 'De Gevonden op Marktplaats-Salon' taking place the 5th until the 8th of June. Where in 2012 Julien and Samir only did a small exposition/sale of curated goods, the two friends now will fill up a large space on the Looigersgracht 60 in Amsterdam, which they arranged in different thematic areas or rooms; from baroque, Memphis Milano to Hollywood Regency. [ Continue reading ]
Stockholm and Paris-based Romain Lenancker is one of those individuals who continues to inspire us with his work in art direction and set design. Since his paper sculptures back in 2009 when we discovered his work, his portfolio has expanded progressively with everything he produces looking extremely impressive. His commercial work blends aesthetically perfectly with personal projects, and his latest project is once again both conceptually and aesthetically very impressive. For Paris-based agency L'Écurie, the art director created this amazing identity of their new division which will dominantly produce work for the watch industry. Instead of finding a specific angle within that context, Romain switched positions and decided to portray the agency as a watch horologium (or brand) in his signature elegant manner, making absolutely clear to future clients what kind of state of the art work they can expect of the new L'Écurie branch. [ Continue reading ]
We aren't major game fans, but since the elegant Monument Valley was released for iPhone and iPad at the beginning of this month, we have really been appreciating it. The newest adventurous game from ustwo, who created Whale Trail and Blip Blup earlier, is a surreal exploration through fantastical architecture and impossible geometry. Guide the silent Princess Ida through mysterious monuments, uncovering hidden paths, taking advantage of optical illusions and outsmarting the enigmatic Crow People. Inspired by the art of M.C. Escher, Japanese prints and minimalist 3D design, each level is a unique, hand-crafted combination of puzzle, graphic design and architecture. Like listening to an album or walking through a museum for the first time, Monument Valley is about discovery, perception and meaningful beauty. [ Continue reading ]
