Letter furniture for children

Alessandro Di Prisco has created a set of letter furniture for children. The shape of each letter serves as the inspiration for the design. The letter “S” is a swing for recreational activity, “I” is a library, “A” and “M” are a chair and table, and “G” is a chair-desk that becomes a corner where both working and relaxing are possible. How cute would this be at a day care center or in a nursery school classroom!

This watch by Hironao Tsuboi

This watch by Hironao Tsuboi is for the high-tech minimalist — it’s faceless, so it is a simple watch band but upon closer inspection you can see that there are cutouts for digital numbers to show through. LED lights shine the time through the stainless steel links.

ZIP BED

God bless anyone and everyone at the Italian company Florida Furniture for designing the Zip Bed. Who would have thought that making a bed could be made as easy, fast and smooth as zipping up and down? Yes that’s true. The bed has a gently rounded frame padded, upholstered, and finished with a zipper running its perimeter. You simply have to unzip to reveal a cozy, neat and clean comfortable sheet and pillows or zip up to hide crumpled sheets underneath.

Coffee Bench

Poland-based BEYOND standards is a collaborative design and production studio led by Karolina Tylka (product designer) and Szymon Nawój (interior architect). They are dedicated to research material, technology and space relations, with a focus on searching for the coherent ideas in every product, space and process designed.

At 100% Design, they launched the Coffee Bench, a movable bench and table that is a smart use of space. Inspired by the need to have coffee in the garden with no space for the cup or newspaper, they designed a smart, rotating unit that can be easily adjusted based on your needs.
The bench can be made into varying lengths up to 3 meters and various materials, so it would be ideal for any outdoor space public or private. A soft version can be created for use indoors, too.

The Pantone Wallstore

The Pantone® Wallstore is a simple magnetic notice board and storage solution in one. The large surface area on top allows good space for the user to store notes, photos, keys and keepsakes etc… while the folded section creates space for magazines and letters. The wallstore is provided with 6 mini magnets and all the fittings needed to fix it to the wall.

Pantone colored wall organizers designed by John Greene for Seletti (who doesn't ship outside of Europe), but is available in the US and the UK:

The New Batumi Aquarium From Henning Larsen

Henning Larsen Architects has won first prize for its significant design concept for a new aquarium in the Georgian seaport of Batumi. The invited competition took place in spring 2010 with the German architecture company Drei Architekten and the two American companies PJA Architects and Pryor & Morrow Architects among the participants.
The 2,000 m2 aquarium will replace the previous aquarium of the port and will be situated on the beach side of Rustaveli Str. adjacent to Batumi 6 May Park featuring a Dolphinarium and Zoo.

Inspired by the characteristic pebbles of the Batumi beach continually shaped by the wash of the waves through millennia, the buildingstands out as an iconic rock formation visible from both land and sea.
The formation constitutes four self-supporting exhibition areas where each of the four stones represents a unique marine biotype – the Aegean Sea & the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Black Sea & the Red Sea and finally the more interactive exhibition space for teaching and “edutainment”.
The four dispersed aquarium exhibitions are connected by a central, multipurpose space including café, auditorium and retail functions with views of the black sea and Batumi beach as scenic backdrop. Visitors gather in the central space to convene, play, eat, shop and relax before continuing their adventures through the exhibitions.
Batumi Aquarium will become a modern, cultural aquarium offering visitors an educational, entertaining and visually stimulating journey through the different seas.

The central, multipurpose space in connection with the aquarium features a café and retail functions and its flexible layout makes it well-suited for presentations and workshops.
“It has been important for us to create a design that relates explicitly to local characteristics of Batumi while at the same time reaching out to the world”, says Anders Park, who is project manager for a number of Henning Larsen Architects’ projects in Georgia. “The aquarium interacts with its surroundings and becomes a manifestation of nature itself”.

Unfolding around the aquarium, a landscape of different sea archipelagos provides attractive opportunities for innovative outdoor research and learning, public space and meeting places along the beach.
The building's significant expression inspired by nature will not only make Batumi Aquarium a spectacular new landmark in Georgia but also a state-of-the-art contribution to exploring life underneath the sea surface.

Project facts
Location: Batumi in the Republic of Georgia
Client: Association A.T.U.
Gross floor area: 2,000 m2
Year of design: 2010 - 2010
Type of assignment: First prize in invited competition
Project team: Louis Becker (design director, partner) Anders Park (project manager), Viggo Haremst (design responsible), Michael Sørensen and Jaewoo Chun.

The City of Batumi

Batumi is the capital of the south-western province Adjara in Georgia. The city has approx. 120,000 citizens and is situated by the Black Sea, approx. 20 km from the border of Turkey. Batumi is a very active tourist city and commercial port. Unlike other cities in Georgia, the houses of Batumi are richly coloured and the city bears the mark of being a sailor city with a number of restaurants and cafés. Batumi also has wonderful beaches and many small hotels.

This time we blew it

If you remember, earlier this year La Bolleur created an amazing mini golf exhibit during Milan Design Week. Now they’re back with “This time we blew it” — a new installation featuring oversized balloon animals. Commissioned by the city of Eindhoven, La Bolleur created these enormous blow ups for the city center, which they explained were “hardly manageable” and “making it happen turned out to be as much fun as the end result.”
Congrats to La Bolleur on their 5 year anniversary, which they’ll be celebrating during Dutch Design Week.

Balancing Barn in the UK by MVRDV

Two years ago, Dutch firm MVRDV was commissioned by Living Architecture, a British organization that promoted the exposure of modern architecture to the general public via holiday rentals. Half of the 30-meter building, located in Suffolk, is suspended in mid-air cantilevered over a steep slope. Because of the slop, from the inside, it seems as though you’re on ground level and tree-height at the same time.
The central core of the building is concrete and the hillside half is made of heavier material to balance out the cantilevered half. The interior was designed by Studio Makkink & Beyand features works by local British artists and Dutch designers.

If you’re brave enough, you can rent it. It sleeps 8 (four bedrooms with adjoining baths), is equipped with a TV and DVD player, and makes for some fun photos for sure!

Photos by Edmund Sumner.

2D installation

Hey Studio created this 2D installation for Loft is in the air in which 9 lofts in Barcelona were taken over by various artists.

Muybridge Chair (Gallop Series)

Mike Kann of Studio801 created the Muybridge Chair (Gallop Series), which were recently exhibited during the London Design Festival at Designersblock.

Inspired by the animal study photography of Eadweard J. Muybridge (known primarily for his pioneering work with the use of multiple cameras to capture motion), Gallop are a range of chairs resembling the gait of a horse. The chair legs were influenced by sketching from the famous frames of movement of horses galloping as captured by Muybridge.

Made of Scottish birch and clear acrylic, these two examples (No. 6 and No. 2) from the Gallop range (other ranges include Jump and Canter) show the two extremes of this motion — from fully outstretched to mid-gallop with all legs lifted from the floor.

'Printing Facebook'

Like your FB friends enough to immortalize them on a large printed poster? That's the idea behind grad student Benjamin Lotan's 'Printing Facebook', a custom printed Friend Poster. For $20, you can choose from your own friends, your favorite groups or fan pages and have each of the profile pics ganged on one photographic print.
Benjamin uses Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper, a high-quality professional grade paper with real weight that will not rip or fold easily. Your poster is exposed onto this paper and developed with traditional photo chemicals so it will have a richer image quality than any ink-jet printer process.
For the background color, there are 4 options: black, white, and two shades of facebook blue. You can preview each color as you go through the ordering process.
• Large 20"x40" print
• Customizable Options
• High Resolution Print
• Quality Photo Paper
• Print Groups & Fan Pages
• $20
Order yours here.