With just 30 days left until entries close for the inaugural Dezeen Awards, we have news of the awards ceremony, which takes place in London later this year.
The ceremony will take place in an extremely high-profile central London institution, designed by world-famous architects. We’re not allowed to reveal the name – but you will be impressed!
30 days left to enter
Dezeen Awards is set to be the industry’s biggest celebration of design talent. One thousand entries have already been received and a further 1,500 awards accounts have been opened.
There are just 30 days remaining to complete your entries! The deadline is 30 June and we will not be accepting entries after that date.
Dazzling ceremony on 27 November
Hosting 600 guests, the ceremony will be one of the highlights of the design year so put the date in your diary now.
Attendees will include Dezeen Awards judges as well as architects and designers from around the world.
Tickets will go on sale in the summer and priority will be given to people who have entered, and been shortlisted for, the awards.
Open an awards account now
There are 30 categories for you to enter, spanning architecture, interiors and design, and you can enter both projects and products.
Registering for a Dezeen Awards account only takes a few minutes, so you can get started on your entry right away.
The deadline for entry is at midnight on 30 June. You can submit multiple projects and products to increase your chances of winning, and having more of your work seen by our stellar line up of judges. Good luck!
A marble table with a ball for a base and a collection of benches inspired by brutalist bus stops feature in this collection of furniture by Georgian design duo Rooms.
Called Life On Earth, the collection consists of 12 handmade objects, made from a combination of natural stone and composite materials.
According to Nata Janberidze and Keti Toloraia, founders of Tbilisi-based Rooms, the pieces reference different aspects of their childhoods growing up in Georgia, and their experience of Asian and European culture.
The Primitive Coffee Table is a green-hued marble table with a semi-spherical base
It brings in elements of different architectural monuments and movement, from soviet monuments to brutalist architecture.
“Playing with the theme of ‘life on Mars’, we wanted to create a collection that celebrates life on Earth,” said the designers. “By always seeking for something new and unfamiliar, we are rarely fully aware of what is around us at any given moment.”
“We also wanted to be more aware of what lies beneath the things that were made centuries ago and how they endured time. The idea was to reiterate the fact that nothing really changes. Permanence is a leitmotif that runs through the whole collection,” they told Dezeen.
The Primitive Chair sits on four cylindrical legs
The Primitive Coffee Table is a green-hued marble table, featuring an oval-shaped surface that cantilevers off a semi-spherical base.
It is complemented by the Primitive Chair, which sits on four cylindrical legs, and the Carved Side Table, which has a hollow centre. Both are also made from the green marble, supplied by Georgian stone company Kamara.
There is also the Wheel Side Table, which has a marble cog-shaped base and a thin metal surface.
The Carved Side Table has a hollow centre
“Organic contradictions of life are translated into materials used in the collection, such as various natural stones that are juxtaposed with the combined composite material,” said the designers.
“Bringing humour and surprising twists into the collection we make the whole experience of life on Earth more entertaining,” they said.
The Bus Stop Bench takes its cues from soviet bus-stop seats
The Bus Stop Bench takes its cues from bus-stop seats installed in soviet countries between 1922 and 1991. Available in a small and a large size, the concrete bench features a long body that curves upwards at the sides.
“The brutalist shapes of the soviet bus stops and public benches were a huge influence,” explained Janberidze and Toloraia.
Artist Max Machaidze worked together with the duo to illustrate the bench with graffiti.
“By collaborating with artist Max Machaidze, we wanted to illustrate how the objects change their initial appearance and how other people’s input to put graffiti and their signature messages, transform the benches into the functional art objects,” they explained.
“The bus stop benches also demonstrate what happens to the objects in public spaces, and how time and people turn them to interactive objects.”
The Magic Stone Table features accents of black stone
The Magic Stone Table features an oval-shaped white composite-stone surface with accents of black stone.
Other pieces in the collection include two sculptural terracotta pedestals, and floor-standing candlesticks made from terracotta and cast iron.
The collection also includes the Terracotta Pedestal 1 and 2, and the Terracotta Candle Holders
Janberidze and Toloraia founded Rooms in 2007. They presented Life On Earth as part of a retrospective exhibition at Milan design week, called Sculpting in Time, hosted as part of the Alcova show from 17 to 22 April 2018.
Japanese studio Akihisa Hirata Architecture Office has completed a mixed-use building in Tokyo featuring a jumbled composition of concrete rooms that create spaces for small balconies and gardens.
The firm headed by architect Akihisa Hirata designed the building in Tokyo’s Toshima district to provide accommodation for a multi-generational family, alongside gallery spaces and offices.
The design of the building is inspired by the formation of a tree, with a central trunk supporting other parts evoking the branches and leaves. This led the architect to title the project the Tree-Ness house.
“As with a tree, we tried to create an organic architecture that could be formed by a hierarchical combination of different parts such as plants, pleats (as openings) and concrete boxes,” said Hirata.
The concrete volumes are stacked to form a structure incorporating several voids that become terraces or spaces into which windows and planters are slotted.
Openings in the facades are lined with white-concrete frames that Hirata describes as “pleats”. These folded forms accommodate functions including window benches, tables, staircases or doorways that result in an ambiguous relationship between interior and exterior spaces.
“I intended to create a futuristic and savage architecture that awakens human animal instincts in which the inside and outside are reversed multiple times,” said the architect.
The building’s ground floor contains parking and an office to the front, with a gallery at the rear. A smaller office and toilet connected to the gallery are accommodated between these spaces, along with stairs and a lift connecting to the upper floors.
A pair of standalone apartments and a flat for the family’s grandmother occupy the first few volumes above the ground floor, with the main residence distributed across several split levels at the top of the building.
A void between the rooms at the centre of the property provides a view of the sky from the ground-floor entrance and maintains a visual connection between the various levels.
Several of the rooms lining this central void incorporate large windows that enable daylight to penetrate the spaces while achieving an insular sense of privacy.
The majority of the interior features exposed concrete walls, floors and ceilings that create an ambiguous relationship between internal and external spaces.
In some areas, materials including wood and leather are used to introduce a warmer tone and texture. A study lined entirely with timber incorporates built-in storage, while a small corner room features a floor and bench covered in brown leather.
Many of the rooms open onto terraces that seamlessly extend the living areas onto the building’s exterior. Planters accommodated on some of the ledges ensure a natural outlook from the windows and help to maintain privacy for the occupants.
An external staircase that wraps around a corner of the box containing the master bedroom at the top of the house ascends to a roof garden providing an expansive view of the city skyline.
From Nightmares on Wax’s upcoming Deep Shadows Remixes EP (which follows January’s Shape the Future album) comes the first rework: ” by often-masked Detroit legend Moodymann (aka Kenny Dixon Jr). The remix starts off silky, and around the one-minute……
Colourful ridged-glass cleaning bottles, a black broom and a red washing line are among the tools for cooking, cleaning and organising created for a New York exhibition based on the American Shaker movement.
Hands to Work is the third edition of Furnishing Utopia, which asks designers to reinterpret objects and themes from the American Shaker movement
Furnishing Utopia 3.0: Hands to Work presented over 50 objects for daily chores during this year’s NYCxDesign festival, marking the third installment of the Shaker-influenced series led by design collective Furnishing Utopia.
Designs in the Shaker-influenced exhibition are intended for mundane household chores, like these baskets for dirty laundry
But this year, rather than emulate designs, the 26 contributing designers and studios were asked to respond to the simple daily lives of Shaker members, who considered the completion of daily household activities like cleaning and cooking “as a path to enlightenment”.
Sophie Lou Jacobsen’s collection of containers includes ridged-glass bottles with spray tops for cleaning products
“Chores are conventionally understood as tedious, burdensome work to be avoided, but these activities can also have an association with mindful rituals that have the potential for clearing one’s mind, connecting with one’s body, and confronting the indifference of the natural world,” said a statement from Furnishing Utopia.
Christopher Specce’s broom features a black handle and bristles with red detailing
Among the designs in the collection is the All Purpose Set by French-American designer Sophie Lou Jacobsen, which comprises a six containers for storing products for cleaning. Jacobsen’s set includes two sprays and a bottle with a round, wooden cap, all of which feature ridged glass to make them easy to hold. There is also a pouring jug and a container topped by a funnel.
This red clothes horse by German designer Katrin Greiling is intended for drying kitchen towels and partitioning spaces
A black broom by US designer Christopher Specce, which is detailed with a red tie around its bristles, a glass watering can by Daniel Castillo and a series of handheld brushes by Henry Julier are among the other designs for cleaning.
Studio Gorm, one of the exhibit’s curators, contributed a long black photograph holder
Featuring a similar aesthetic in Hands to Work are a wooden board and a mortal and pestle for chopping and grinding herbs, by American design brand Fin. These cooking tools could be accompanied in the kitchen by wooden paper towel holder by Norwegian designer Stine Aas and a dish rack by Helsinki-based Studio Tolvanen.
Kitchen tools can also be hung from the red, wooden rack that German designer Katrin Greiling created to also be used to partition rooms. A number of other designs are intended for organising the household, like a set of black storage drawers, a set of cork baskets and two different buckets.
Jamie Wolfond’s Wanderoing Planter can be easily moved around on wheels
Canadian designer Jamie Wolfond, founder of Brooklyn-based design studio Good Thing, created the Wandering Planter – a plant pot that is set on wheels so it can be easily moved around.
Also in the collection is a soap set by Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, which includes a bottle holder and a soap tray
A round stool by Danish studio Norm Architects provides a perch for completing tasks low to the ground, while Oregon-based designer Tom Bonamici responded to the brief with his dark Chore Coat to protect clothing when completing messy tasks.
Other pared-back tools include a dustpan brush with striped bristles
Other contributors include the exhibition’s creative directors, Brooklyn-based Ladies & Gentlemen Studio, which designed a striped brush with a domed handle and a soap set, including a bottle holder and a soap tray.
Ladies & Gentlemen Studio led the project with curators Studio Gorm – which created a simple black wooden frame for hanging pictures – and Christopher Specce.
Taking a different response to the brief, designer Tom Bonamici created a dark Chore Coat
Furnishing Utopia 3.0: Hands to Work took place from 19 to 22 May 2018 at 158 Mercer Street, as part of the citywide NYCxDesign festival.
Jonggun Kim realizes something pretty important with AR and VR adoption. We’re less likely to adopt it if it’s alien to our current lifestyle. No one currently carries (or needs to carry) a VR or AR headset with them so the only way to make them more widespread is to actively integrate them into one’s way of living.
No one carries headsets around with them, but there’s a large portion of the population that carries headphones with them. Realizing that, the Prism is an AR headset that transforms into an innocuous pair of headphones. With a HUD that slides upwards and downwards, you can turn the Prism from an immersive audio-visual AR experience, to a pair of headphones. Giving you the power to switch between modes, the Prism does something clever by making you actively adopt one technology by providing you with an alternative that seems more acceptable and commonplace. The headphones get used pretty much every day, while the Prism weans you onto AR by constantly being an available option that’s just one HUD-swivel away!
We are all aware of the decline of bees—and nobody knows exactly why. One potential factor could be the urbanization causes bees to travel further for pollen leading to death by exhaustion. Bee Saving Paper might be the solution. Produced with energy……
Luxury fashion brand Balenciaga is causing a stir online with a T-shirt that features a long-sleeved shirt attached to its front, designed for its Fall 2018 collection.
Called the T-shirt Shirt, the item of clothing is a blue T-shirt with a checkered button-up shirt sewn onto its front.
According to the brand, the piece has “two wearing options”, which result in either a draped effect on the front or back of the piece – the product can either be worn as a T-shirt with the shirt draping at the front or vice-versa.
The “attention seeking design” of the t-shirt, which retails for £935, has left many online commentators baffled.
The T-shirt Shirt has come to the attention of numerous media outlets. In a piece titled “Holy shirt”, The Guardian deemed the luxury offering “ridiculous”, claiming the brand has been trolling customers since Demna Gvasalia was appointed as creative director in 2015.
Elsewhere, The Independent dubbed the luxury clothing item as “nonsense”, while Time compared the piece to a human clothes hanger.
The T-shirt shirt has also caused confusion on social media with one Twitter user saying, “I thought this Balenciaga shirt was a joke”, while another said, “when the dress code says smart casual so you turn up with your shirt sewn onto your T-shirt”.
This is not the first time the Spanish brand’s designs have resulted in controversy. Last year, the fashion house released a large blue tote bag that bore a striking resemblance to IKEA‘s iconic Frakta bag, which was priced at £1,705.
Earlier this year, the brand released a pair of Croc-like platform shoes, which were priced at £600 and sold out before their release date.
Danish furniture company Carl Hansen & Son has released its first line of office furniture, building on its collection of heritage household pieces.
Carl Hansen & Son partnered New York-based Brad Ascalon for the series, marking the brand’s first collaboration with an American designer.
The Preludia collection features stackable chairs that can be flat-packed and shipped in large volumes easily, as well as high-top tables and other designs for the office.
The chairs are constructed from a 3D wood-veneer shell, which forms a continuous curved seat and back.
The veneer is formed from several thin layers of timber that are shaped using a mould and steam, creating a three-dimensional form that is designed to be as ergonomic as possible.
According to the brand, the material offers a durable yet softer and more comfortable alternative to plastic or fibreglass, which is often used for office furniture.
Carl Hansen & Son also uses 3D veneer to make Japanese architect Tadao Ando’s Dream Chair, launched in 2013.
“3D veneer is the only material that would enable us to adapt to the human form as thoroughly as we wanted to – while keeping the natural feel of wood that is so important to the Carl Hansen & Son brand,” said Ascalon.
“We looked at every decision through the lens of moving a brand forward while holding on to its history,” he added. “The use of wood in the form of 3D veneer offered the opportunity to do both.”
The Preludia chair comes in oak, walnut or beech, with options for bare veneer, partially upholstered in a variety of textiles or leathers, or fully upholstered.
Another version of the chair has a similar veneer shell, but available with a base of chrome, black or white powder-coated steel.
When designing the chair for the office series, Ascalon referenced the curved designs of Carl Hansen’s iconic mid-century chairs, like Hans J Wegner’s Wishbone Chair. “I have kept that on my desk ever since, as continued inspiration for this project,” he said.
“I have always viewed mid-century modernism as an ideal for good design, and have always been curious about how these designers worked, how they used their materials, what they questioned, and how they found their answers,” the designer added.
Also part of the collection are a rectangular table, a rounded dining table and a high-top rectangular bar table. All of these are made of solid oak or walnut with various finishes.
The tabletops come in black or white laminate with cast aluminium corner joints, which contrast with the wooden base.
The Preludia series debuted at the Carl Hansen & Son’s showroom in New York City during the NYCxDesign festival, which took place 11-23 May 2018, and will be available from October 2018.
Ettore Sottsass‘ Memphis designs join eccentric contemporary furnishings that decorate a townhouse in New York’s Soho for this installation.
Above: the Large 22 detachable piece De Sede DS600 Non-Stop Sectional Sofa is among the designs on show at Raquel’s Dream House. Top image: Masanori Umeda’s Tawaraya Boxing Ring from 1981, featuring lacquered wood and tie-dyed pillows, is among the most recognisable Memphis designs on display
Open for the month of May, the Raquel’s Dream House pop-up is the brainchild of art collector Raquel Cayre.
Daniel Buren’s 5 pillars are accompanied by Pesce’s 54 Arm Lamp and Mobile Ritratto dell’uomo Contento on the ground floor of the Soho townhouse
The residence at 79 Greene Street has been furnished in the style of Cayre’s Instagram account @ettoresottsass, which pays homage to Sottsass – the late Italian architect and renowned protagonist of the Memphis Group.
As with the social media account, the four-storey house features items created from the 1980s design movement. These are placed alongside contemporary pieces that reference the style, which is recognisable for bright colours, asymmetric shapes, and use of plastic.
Pesce’s papier maché sculpture features a smiling face and red legs that appear to be dripping in paint
“Through the Dream House, I brought my digital feed to life with works by Ettore Sottsass, Daniel Buren, Memphis Milano, Gaetano Pesce, Max Lamb, Bower Studios and many more infilling the Soho townhouse,” Cayre told Dezeen.
Among the Sottsass creations that visitors to the house will find is the Carlton room divider. Designed in 1981, it comprises a series of colourful geometric shapes stacked on top of one another to form a partition, a bookcase and chest of drawers.
Sottsass’ multi-functional piece is located on the ground floor, where designer Al Freeman’s squishy green lighter, yellow pencil and pink medicine bottle artworks are mounted on the wall.
Launched last year, Freeman’s pieces join a number of contemporary designs on this level, like a white sofa comprised of different sections so that it curves, a large papier-mache sculpture featuring a face, and a set of stripy black and white columns.
Designs from different eras are included in the installation, like the Fauteuil Alpha Club Chair by mid-century-modern designer Pierre Paulin
Cayre has brought in more designs by Sottsass on the first floor, including a mirror with a curvy pink plastic frame and the Enorme Telephone – a black phone with blocks of red and yellow.
The architect’s Bay Lamp is also set atop the Peninsula Table by US artist Peter Shire, who completed the piece in 1982, building the table top on legs of different colours and shapes.
Two throne-like red polyurethane resin and plastic chairs by Gaetano Pesce, cartoonish paper pulp chairs by Thomas Barger, and fluffy seats by Fernando and Humberto Campana are among other standout designs.
On the remaining two levels is a red sofa that resembles a pair of lips designed by Studio65 and produced by Gufram, mirrors that look like archways that were recently launched by Bower Studios, and three sculptural chairs made of polystyrene and metal by Max Lamb.
Designer Al Freeman’s Soft Green Lighter, Soft Pencil (x-treme bend) and Soft Upset Stomach Reliever, which decorate one of the walls, are some of the more recent works
Raquel’s Dream House came about after Cayre visited the Greene Street residence. She decided that its white-painted walls and weathered black-painted wooden flooring were a suitable and unusual blank canvas for the bold pieces.
She then called upon the contributors, designers and artists to source the range of works.
Ettore Sottsass’ squiggly Ultrafragola mirror is placed at the top of the stairs, which Cayre has painted in bold Memphis-style colours
The curator believes the project offers an alternative approach to exhibiting design and artwork outside of galleries. “It’s a month-long initiative that re-examines traditional methods of presenting, viewing, and experiencing design, as well as its corresponding modes of display,” she continued.
The Valentine Portable Typewriter, which Sottsass created in 1968, is among his other featured designs
Contributors: Friedman Benda, Urban Architecture Inc, Bortolami Gallery, Ralph Pucci, R & Company, Studio Proba, Bower Studios, Salon 94 Design, 56 Henry and Coming Soon New York.
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