Hasta La Ideas

Until we’re able to charge devices using our own future humanoid bodies, we’re going to have to keep coming up with gadgets that can keep our smartphones kicking! The latest in a trend of multifunctional chargers, the Powerbag does just as the name suggests.

Useful for everything from grocery shopping to picnicking, users can rest assured that their phones, tablets, and other devices will stay charged and ready to use thanks to a built-in battery 24000mAh powerbank at the bottom of the bag. Using the appropriate ports on the powerbank, users can run their wire directly into the bag or leave it outside. The bottom section of the tote is clad in an anti-slip material with ridges for traction. Better yet, it can be detached so the upper fabric section can be washed and reused.

Designer: Davide Anzalone

Every week (although the timing isn’t particularly fixed), I see a chair sketch on my Instagram feed, and after having seen and liked dozens of them, my mind can almost instantly recognize @nickpbaker’s style and brand of creativity anywhere.

Given the hashtag of #nickschairsketches, Baker uploads unusual conceptual chair designs almost every week. The chairs showcase inventiveness that one rarely sees in furniture design, as concepts take inspiration from quite literally anywhere. Scroll down to see a few of our favorites.

Designer: Nicholas Baker

I dub this chair the inside-out chair because of the way it’s built. With a hard, molded plywood outside, and a removable plush felt cushion inside, the chair can be used both as a hard seating device or a soft seating device, or even a lounging device by combining the two. Clever, isn’t it?!

Building on the idea of converting chairs into loungers, this design actually comes with a slatted construction and a hinge that allows the lounging module to fold right into the chair. Fold it in and you have a nice, sturdy chair. Fold it out and you’ve got a chair with a nifty leg-rest!

Here’s a third way of going about it. Stackability! The chair comes with the leg-rest right under it. Lift the chair up and flip the leg-rest over and you’ve got a chair that’s slightly shorter, but has a nice comfortable place to keep your outstretched legs… or maybe use the leg-rest as an ottoman stool or side-table.

I’d imagine a villain from a Pixar movie having this chair with piranhas inside it. Probably not the kind of chair you’d see in Peta’s headquarters, this one is actually an aquarium you can sit on. Made from thick glass, the aquarium is shaped like a chair and can actually accommodate a human on it, although I doubt if the fish would like that view.

However, if you’re going to combine chair and water, this is absolutely the way to do it. This chair/pool hybrid is perfect for people of all ages. Just fill the water in and beat the heat! Hey Nick, how about building a bottle-holder into this one.

Two likely materials and one unlikely material come together to make this chair. First, you’ve got a bent-metal base/framework, on which lies, secondly, the cushion that covers not just the seating area but the backrest too, and then right at the end, you’ve got rubber-bands that hold the cushion to the base! Quite unconventional, if you ask me…

Another metal+cushion combination that has my heart. This concept actually creates an enclosure for the beanbag, giving it a more defined structure than being a lumpy blob of leather on the floor. The beanbag sits in the metal framework, and can easily accommodate one human. Who knows, sitting on this sort of beanbag may actually be more comfortable!

Perfect for the person who wants to sit but gently swing too, this chair concept comes with a steel framework from which it hangs. Nothing too unoriginal here, but I actually love the form on this one, and the use, or rather overuse, of arcs and curved lines.

This concept challenges the very idea of packaging. Most products come packed in styrofoam to protect them from damage, but what if your product IS the styrofoam? Designed around a cuboidal form (because of shipping boxes) this chair comes with its own side-table. Made entirely from styrofoam (polystyrene), the chair practically weighs nothing, but can easily take the weight of one, or even two humans on it. And don’t worry if some of the styrofoam chips off a bit. It only adds to the chair’s unusual charm!

This concept is made from a singular form of marble, sliced into four pieces (quite like bread). The largest bit becomes the seating area, while the remaining three pieces become the two legs and the backrest. Aside from the scooped detail, this design doesn’t require much effort or time to put together, since it literally involves slicing and assembly (with no glue or fasteners involved either). The choice of marble gives the chair its premium appeal, and I’d love to see a variant made in granite!

According to Vitra, in 1946 Charles and Ray Eames designed a tabletop radio with a housing made of bent plywood, and this “was rejected by the designated manufacturer, who wanted a ‘normal design’.”

Charles and Ray sent photographs of the prototype to the magazine ‘Interiors’; matchbooks were included in the pictures as a scale reference. Their aim was to increase the acceptance of smaller, more modern devices.

The device never saw manufacture. But Vitra apparently owns the design as they’re now, some 70 years later, rolling it out–albeit with some design modifications:

As you can see it’s got four extra buttons, presumably to manage the Bluetooth features Vitra’s added, and of course there’s an LCD.

A couple of things bug me about this. One, they’ve placed the Eames signature on the face of the radio. Firstly I think Charles and Ray would’ve found this tacky, and secondly, they didn’t actually sign off on this modified design, so the signature is kind of a lie.

Second thing that bugs me: Limited-Edition-ness. They’re only producing an arbitrary-sounding 999 of these, for $999 each. As always I find it ironic that the Eameses set out to produce good design for the masses, yet the modern-day rights holders to their designs seem to keep them frustratingly out of reach.

Architecture firm BIG‘s verdant mixed-use complex, reminiscent of Moshe Safdie’s experimental Habitat 67 housing in Montreal, has been approved for Toronto.

The King West Street development, first revealed in 2016, has gained permission to begin construction in Canada’s largest city.

Its design by Bjarke Ingels‘ firm BIG comprises stacks of cubes, arranged in an undulated form that creates a series of “peaks and valleys”.

The studio looked to Canadian-Israeli architect Moshe Safdie’s seminal Habitat 67 project, which is similarly made up of box-like modular units. Ingels referred to his Toronto building as “Habitat 2.0” in an Instagram post when it was first unveiled.

“With King Street West, we wanted to find an alternative to the tower and podium you see a lot of in Toronto and revisit some of Safdie’s revolutionary ideas,” said Ingels in a recent statement. “But rather than a utopian experiment on an island, have it nested into the heart of the city.”

The 613,543-square-foot (57,000-square-metre) King Street West project is set to be built along its namesake thoroughfare, between Spadina Avenue and Portland Street.

Its wave-like roof will be formed from five “peaks” of various heights, with portions measuring anywhere from six to 13 storeys, according to renderings.

Like Habitat 67, the layout will offer private balconies and terraces for every residential unit – all of which are oriented to have improved access to natural light.

“The topography of the peaks and valleys provides terraces for larger units, while others have balconies stacked along the building’s perimeter,” BIG’s statement said.

“Each pixel is set at the size of a room; rotated 45 degrees from the street grid to increase exposure to light and air. An undulating design allows light to reach neighbouring King Street all year round.”

Along with the numerous green spaces, King West Street will include a central courtyard and “the potential for urban farming”, the firm said.

Its hollow core will serve as a public plaza, where a series of ferns will be planted to create an “urban forest”. Public pedestrian pathways will crisscross through the courtyard to connect different areas of the complex.

King Street West will also integrate heritage buildings on the site into its envelope. The three historic structure will be left intact but incorporated into the wider volume of BIG’s development.

Areas for retail and offices around the base will correspond with the height of these old buildings, while the residential units will sit on top.

King West Street is planned in collaboration with Westbank Projects, a leading luxury residential and mixed-use real estate development company in Canada, and will be developed by MGM Group.

Ingels’ 2016 Serpentine Pavilion, which has a similar curvaceous yet pixelated form, was recently installed close to the site.

Westbank bought the structure after it was dismantled in London, and originally intended to reassemble it in Vancouver. The company is also behind BIG’s twisting Vancouver House tower that is rising in the West Coast city, and the studio’s Telus Sky building nearing completion in Calgary.

Toronto has its own fair share of new developments, either proposed or under construction. They range from Canada’s tallest building by Foster + Partners and an underground park built beneath Gardiner Expressway, to a “future city” designed by Google’s parent company Alphabet.

Renderings provided by Westbank Projects and BIG.

Project credits:

Partners in charge: Bjarke Ingels, Thomas Christoffersen
Project manager: Ryan Harvey
Project designer: Lorenz Krisai
Project architect: Andrea Zalewski
Collaborating architects: Diamond Schmitt Architects, BA Group, BIG Ideas, ERA Architects
Consultants: Gladki Planning Consultants, Gunn, Greenberg Consultants
Engineers: Reinbold Engineers, Nemetz and Associates, Read Jones Christoffersen Ltd, Public Work

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