Category: Furniture design

Monarchy

Monarchy is a crown-like shaped rocking stool, created by Yiannis Ghikas. Visually laconic and fun in use, the piece is convenient when you need extra seating. The design aims to offer freedom of movement to the user. Just by moving your legs and shifting your weight, you can change the orientation of the stool. The designer explains:

The balancing process creates a playful userobject relationship. The stool explores the idea that when seated, many people feel the need to be free from enforced bodily positions. 

I like the lightness and the versatility of the object. It can blend into any room and environment. Just don’t use it to change a lightbulb…

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Sticks

I like the versatile cabinets named Sticks, by Dutch product- and interior designer Gerard de Hoop. De Hoop’s work is characterized by simplicity, versatility and play of lines with attention to functionality.

Inspired by seeing a number of placards put aside he created a cabinet system with boxes, in four different widths and heights, standing on one leg. Sticks can be used for several occasions; a low board, a side board or a casual wardrobe. Loose you can use it as a small hall cabinet or bed side table.

I love the simple shapes and the playful one leg. It looks like the cabinet can fall aside at any moment. Sticks are available in plain, effect or gloss lacquer.

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Femme Chair

This elegant little chair is designed by Rik ten Velden. Bearing the name of “Femme Chair”, this chair is constructed from a single rope. Rick ten Velden is fascinated with sailor’s knots and all the different objects knots can create. He spent three months learning how to knot before he perfected the technique. Then he started the Single Knotted Collection, and is currently making objects all using these knot techniques. The seat of this chair is made of classic rope, and the rest is made of a single metal rod that curves into two circles, one to support the bottom and the other to support the seat. I love the simplicity of the two materials and how they work together. The use of rope in the seat also ensures durability. This is a chair made to last.

The Femme Chair is obviously reminiscent of all things maritime, providing a simple nod to its inspiration. This chair does not hide anything, its structure and composition are plain for all to see, allowing one to trace its origins and see how the parts fit together. Femme Chair is quiet and unassuming, but possesses a strong sense of character. The way the circle tilts upwards, delicately balanced on its base, gives it a bird-like quality. Perhaps like a little bird perched on a little ship.

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Jorge magazine rack

Jorge is a magazine rack designed by Barcelona-based multidisciplinary studio Gauzak for company Quattria.

Part of a collection of three pieces (Marc, Camps & Jorge; a coffee table, an umbrella stand and a magazine rack, respectively), it’s executed in steel rods, a material that subtracts visual weight as it creates void volumes. It stands as a simple, straightforward structure, that could very well go unnoticed as it blends into its environment, or draw attention precisely because of its simplicity.

Combined with the leather handle, an elegant touch to the piece that provides it with a better grip for moving, both materials (steel and leather) have the quality to age well and be sober, lasting products, as intended by the designers.

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Concrete Kitchen

The Concrete Kitchen by Martin Steininger has been recently awarded the prestigious RedDot design award. The designer used  ultra-thin 8 mm concrete as a main visual element in this project. Heat resistant and safe for food, the material is a perfect match for the function of the kitchen. However, the manufacturing process has to be very precise and requires a certain know-how. Hand-polished surfaces, minimal details and appliances add to the slick and streamlined look.

I love the combination of cool and masculine concrete and warm wood. Integrated herbal boxes save space and eliminate the need for cluttering additions to the kitchen.

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Rock Chair

Studio Färg & Blanche have designed this stunning modern rocking chair as a reaction to the dwindling rocking chairs available in the furniture market today. According to Färg & Blanche:

Being rocked as a means of relaxation or comfort is a timeless, basic human experience. Though at some time in the early 20th century the design development of the rocking chair stopped. Rocking chairs frequently remain in an ornate, salon mode. Fredrik Färg’s Rock Chair is a rocking chair for our own time. It continues the traditional rocking chair’s comforting function but in a modern design.

Rock Chair is an elegant design composed of simple elements. The chair is sold in a flat pack that contains five pieces. The pieces easily fit together and the finished chair reveals its construction. Accordingly, the process of assembly becomes a design feature. The viewer understands the process by which the chair came together because nothing about the construction is hidden from sight. Rock Chair has an ease and simplicity about it. I love its clever functionality, and its classic charm ensures it will fit in well with any living environment. Rock Chair even comes with corresponding cushions in either leather or canvas, to allow to for the most comfortable and stylish of rocking experiences.

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Tuoli

Pasila Design, a recent founded small Finish family business design agency, created Tuoli. Tuoli is an ergonomic, minimalist, chair for parents making it easy for them to interact – on eye level -with a playing child on the floor. The chair is multi functional as one can create a slide for the child by turning it upside down.

Pasila design just finished their first furniture collection, a collection that consists of  timeless designs and classic furniture with a funny edge. At the moment the products are prototypes, but their goal is to be able to offer furniture for your home in the near future.

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black&black

K% is an exciting new venture, born from the collaboration between famed Japanese design studio Nendo and K Projects from Singapore, with Oki Sato, Nendo’s prolific co-founder, as a design director. The début collection, K% is currently showing at Salone del Mobile 2012, is called black&black. Purposely reduced to one colour, the line explores the relationship between structure and function. There is no distraction of new techniques or unusual materials. All pieces are made out of wood or metal.

The black&black collection is comprised of 15 objects, all following Nendo’s minimalist aesthetic. Sato elaborates:

It is exciting to be able to expand the original idea of Nendo into other parts of the world, starting with K%. We hope to bring a little bit of inspiration to everyone’s home through our products.

Collaborators for black&black are Singapore design firms Stidio JuJu and Exit Design. They each contributed an item to the collection.

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Servus

In search of a minimal, lightweight yet practical wardrobe, I recently came across German furniture designer Florian Saul‘s elegant clothing rack, Servus (Latin for servant).

The wardrobe, with its simple and reduced form, leans against a wall, supported by two small rubber feet. To accommodate small items such as gloves and scarves, there is a removable leather bag attached to the frame. If additional space is required, two frames can be combined. The cross-connection could subsequently provide space for conventional hangers.

Although there are many similar concepts available and indeed several have previously been featured on Minimalissimo, Servus, I feel, would serve me well.

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Nook

The Nook sidetable is an apparently fairly simple and straightforward concept designed by Germany-based Lukas Franciszkiewicz… Yet it questions and challenges our very basic spatial conventions.

We are used to have predetermined beliefs in placing our furniture. My aim was to create an object that demonstrates new ways of dealing with the relation between space and structure. The table correlates with architecture and other pieces of furniture.

Aesthetically minimalistic but intrinsically filled with some form of questioning, however simple it may be, is the motto that frequently informs Franciszkiewicz’s designs, who is focused on research and experimental concepts, dealing with the impact of technology on human perception and behavior, often using fiction as a tool to further present his work.

In a technology-oriented world increasingly filled with products and objects and stuff, I can definitely appreciate this effort in thoughtfulness.

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