The Tom Kundig Collection, launched in 2012 by Olsen Kundig Architects is a celebration of the moments when people become kinetically involved with the buildings and spaces they inhabit. The series features a variety of differing interaction scenarios, suitably named peek, no peek, droop, pull and earless. The collection is one of stylised conscious consideration of experience. With each piece, the user is challenged to change their interaction with the hardware, as a response to the evolution of the aesthetic that is presented. I like and appreciate this immensely. Here, design is challenging behaviour, heightening experience and giving a nod to the appreciative eye of the user. The use of steel, the consideration of the line work and seamless nature of the execution are beautiful. Seattle-based Olsen Kundig Architects were also recognised in 2012 from Interior Design magazine with a Best of the Year Award. Envisioned as the first of several product lines by the firm, the focus of the collection stems from Kundig’s well-known interest in the ways people interact with their environment. The resulting collection is one that celebrates the movement of people through architecture, and the interface of that interaction is celebrated. I look forward to the...

Japanese artist Kumi Yamashita (1968) is known for creating realistic imagery from invisible sources. Her shadow art has earned Yamashita international recognition with works appearing in such venues as Seattle Art Museum, Boise Art Museum, Yerba Buena Centre, San Francisco, the Esplanade in Singapore, Hillside Gallery in Tokyo and the Kent Gallery in New York. The pieces are comprised of ordinary everyday things and a single light source, which brings these objects to life. Alphabets and building blocks, scattered across the wall, become realistic human figures, coloured resin plates give shape to facial silhouettes, and credit card imprints create portraits. Yamashita’s precision is staggering. It is amazing to see how these sophisticated, coherent and very detailed images have been originated. These works are exhaustively complex in execution and yet manage to remain simple and minimal to the eye. Kumi Yamashita will be having solo exhibitions at the Sato Museum, Tokyo and the Dillon Gallery, New York in 2012.

Seattle based Urbancase was founded on the philosophy of designing object that contribute to a simple lifestyle focusing on basic aesthetics and functionality. Driven by this philosophy they created the OTIS desk lamp. OTIS is designed with the idea of reducing the number of moving parts while maintaining fully adjustable functionality. The powder coated steel base can be rotated to adjust the direction of the light, while the aluminum head gives you the ability to fine tune. You can easily move the feet to raise and lower the lamp.

Inspired by his father, a civil engineer who built toys for his children, Seattle based Brad Singley designed Multiblocks. Singley says: I can still remember the frustration of playing with building blocks as a young child. I wanted to build BIG, but it was impossible to make a skyscraper out of triangles, semicircles, cylinders, and small cubes. His fater in the end made him a set of wooden square and rectangular cubes in different lengths. Many years later Singley recreated his favorite toy. He added numbers and increments to encourage mathematical and creative thinking. The blocks, from scraps of basswood leftover from other products, come in recycled cotton storage bag and seem to me the perfect gift for kids.