Posts from — February 2009

Remember those awesome collapsible work/eat/sleep stations designed by Atelier OPA? Well their latest creation, this wind-powered lantern known as mawaridoro, is pretty amazing. They’ve basically taken the concept of the wind turbine and applied it to a lamp shade. As simple as that sounds, this was actually a huge breakthrough because previous designs required a separate power-generator whereas this one integrates it into the light shade.

The lantern was on display at a german furniture fair just last month.

I guess the kicker will be how much this thing actually costs (I wasn’t able to locate a price anywhere). But I just got a rad glimpse of the future, in which all streetlights are powered by this thing!

You never know what’s going to provide inspiration. This morning I came across these items that made my day. I love the look and feel of those fabrics. But ironically the real kicker, for me, was that hanger holding up the blouse. That hanger is AMAZING.

Except for the socks they’re all from the Tokyo-based boutique Mina Perhonen. The socks are from mint designs.

Spotted over at baden-baden.

Yesterday MoMA unveiled a their public art project, MoMAAtlantic/Pacific, replacing subway advertisements in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street subway station with over 50 pieces of reproductions from their permanent collection.

clockwise from top left: (images courtesy of Jeff Baxter)
Roy Lichtenstein. “The Melody Haunts My Reverie” (1965)
Robert Indiana. “LOVE” (1967)
Jackson Pollock. “One: Number 31, 1950″ (1950) – I think…

The project reminds me a lot of one I read about in the Washington Post last year in which one of the world’s greatest violinists, Joshua Bell, dressed as a street performer, gave a performance in a D.C. subway station. You can read the full story HERE and watch a video clip but for a quick result, he made $32.17 over a 45-min time span. That’s actually not bad, however, seats for his concerts do go for over $100 a head.

I had never heard of the architecture firm Suppose Design Office until just the other day when I was chatting it up with a buddy and found out that they were responsible for the amazing interiors of Design Tide Tokyo in late 2008.

Anyway, a quick look through previous works soon revealed my future house! Actually, the first floor is a cafe and the second floor is used as a residence. That’ll work. It’s from 2003; on oldie but a goodie. See the entire slideshow HERE.

I came across this awesome graphic by Laura Stanton for the Washington Post.

Truck Furniture is having a show over at LimArt in Ebisu, Tokyo! The Osaka-based furniture designers rarely make a Tokyo appearance so this is a great time to go check out some high-quality, minimalist furniture. I did a post on them a while back, if you’d like to see some examples of their work.The show runs through Feb 22.

LimArt is also a really cool space if you’ve never been – another reason to check it out!

I just wanted to let everyone know that I added some links (on the bottom right) to recommended reading, mostly of books that I’ve featured on my site at one point or another. Right now my top pick is Designing Design, by Kenya Hara. I’m reading it right now and it’s amazing! As you may know, Hara is the art director for minimalist Japanese brand MUJI, and is primarily responsible for their gorgeous less-is-more aesthetic. Designing Design was recently published in English and is now available, conveniently, through amazon!

Atelier Bow-Wow, who I featured in my contemporary Japanese Architects write-up, is having their first solo show in the States! Awesome.
“Small Case Study House” is currently on display at the Gallery at Redcat in LA. The concept of the show is to rethink environmentally sustainable low cost housing. The nyt blog the moment takes a closer look and points out the parallels between their prototypes and traditional Japanese teahouses.

images courtesy of Steven A. Gunther

New Yorkers sit tight! We’ll get our fair share of Atelier Bow-Wowness when they take on the spatial design of KRAZY, another exhibit on Japanese Anime & Manga, going up in March at the Japan Society.

I thought this was a neat idea.
So everyone is always trying to hide their cords. They buy all sorts of organizers and gadgets to hide those ugly cords that are a necessary evil in our technologically dependent lives. But all you have to do is make those cords look pretty. That was the idea behind Vine (2008), the latest work by Microworks, the quirky design firm of up and coming designer Shunsuke Umiyama.

It’s a conceptual piece that was done for telecom operator KDDI, but hopefully it will become available soon.

Related:

• Microworks: No Humor No Design

calendar & flowerpot. Beautiful. No further explanation needed. Designed by Korea-based nothing design group.

via garosugil