Hasta La Ideas

Architecture office MIA Design Studio has used a delicate lattice of timber battens and metal mesh to create this pavilion for architectural events in Thủ Đức in Vietnam.

Commissioned by built environment media company Ashui, The Straw Pavilion has been designed by local practice MIA Design Studio.

Thủ Đức is a sub-city in the northeast of Ho Chi Minh City

Set within an area of parkland containing vegetable and fruit gardens alongside a canal, the studio turned to images of rural Vietnam for the form of the pavilion, which is designed to evoke a pile of straw.

“When we first came to the site, we immediately felt the presence of nature here, of various plants and greenery, and the need to assert it throughout our design,” said MIA Design Studio.

“We decided to create a structure that can blend itself into its surrounding environment. Straw is an image of memory, one that belongs to the Vietnamese countryside.”

The pavilion sits alongside an existing walkway, which crosses the canal via a thin bridge. The U-shape of the structure wraps around a small area of decking that serves as the platform for events.

While the design initially appears disordered, it is organised according to a grid, with parallel screens of metal mesh creating a skeleton into which wooden battens are slotted and tied perpendicular to one another.

The result is a building that shifts depending on the angle at which it is viewed, both merging with and standing out against the surrounding greenery. Over time, the studio hopes that as the wood weathers the pavilion will further become part of the landscape.

“Straw is an entity that is able to completely blend itself into the natural context,” said MIA Design Studio. “By not parading around shapes or materials, we hope that it is able to appear and disappear with time.”

Based in Ho Chi Minh City, MIA Design Studio often looks for ways to incorporate nature in its designs.

In Saigon, the practice’s Sky House covered a concrete home in protruding planters, and in Vũng Tàu the practice designed a home with plant-lined courtyards.

Photography is by Trieu Chien.

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There’s something about a well-crafted piece of wooden furniture that can add an aura of warmth and calmness to any space! Wooden furniture is often simple and minimal, but when crafted with care and precision, and amped with smart detailing, they can truly liven up any room, while also emitting a zen-like sense of peace. And, this collection of beautiful and intricate wooden furniture designs do exactly that! Designed with extreme attention to detail, overflowing with love and care, and not only aesthetically but functionally pleasing, these furniture designs will be an invaluable addition to your living space, making you feel truly at home.

The Triforce details of this side cabinet by Deniz Aktay are absolutely exquisite! The triangular edges add a touch of intricacy to a simple and raw piece of furniture. Sometimes the simplest woodwork is truly the best!

Soft Baroque designed the 005 Coffee Table for Vaarnii. The humbleness and sturdiness of pine are reflected through this delicate coffee table. The joints used to built traditional Finnish log houses were added for a decorative effect to this furniture piece.

This beautiful dressing table by Wood Effect is a minimal and warm piece, fitted with several storage sections and drawers. The simple woodwork of the piece brilliantly shines through in the detailing!

The Bowater Drawer by Jan Hendzel Studio is an exploration of British timber. Crafted from olive and baked ash, the ripple at the centre of the drawer is the eye-catching detail of this piece!

Designed by Josh Carmody Studio, the central joint of this three-seater dining table is a simple expression of three structural elements supporting and interacting with one another. It is a metaphor for the daily activity of a family on a dining table.

This chair is an amazing display of nostalgia and minimalism through furniture design. The designer wanted to incorporate our inherent ways of interacting with nature into a chair. Stubby chair was inspired by these environmental settings that combined the love for interiors with an element from the exterior world.

Designed by Anthony Dain, the 396 Side Cabinet is a wooden furniture piece with marvellous detailing! The rippled woodwork on the sides and at the bottom of the cabinet have been crafted with extreme precision and attention to detail.

Crafted from American oak and walnut, this adorable shoe rack by Albura Wood Designs features some intricate wood and joint work.

The folding mechanisms that fill out Fold Shelf also allow the unit to shrink down to nearly half its size compared to when it’s fully opened and ready for use. The designers say that Fold Shelf was designed as a Swedish cabinetmaker’s, or journeyman’s piece, requiring the incorporation of a pull-out drawer, hinges, veneered surfaces, and joints.

The ‘Pallet Thief’ is certainly no ordinary piece of furniture, but then again, it’s a vision and a proof of concept for designer Anton Brunberg, who aimed at showing the potential this recycled pallet wood has in the furniture-design world. It comes with hundreds of pallet planks joint together before the seat is carved out of the central mass.

Fosters + Partners has restored and converted the Palazzo Marignoli in Rome into an Apple Store, uncovering historic features and opening up a central courtyard.

Apple Via del Corso is located near the Piazza Colonna in the centre of Rome, occupying the historic Palazzo Marignoli.

The Apple Via del Corso building dates back to the 16th-century and originally operated as a church until a fire destroyed the building in 1617.

Following the restoration of the structure, it was converted into the Palazzo Marignoli in 1878 and served as a home for Marquis Filippo Marignoli and housed Caffè Aragno – a famous gathering spots for artists.

Foster + Partners wanted to celebrate its history by highlighting its grandeur and restoring its historic features.

“The idea was to celebrate different aspects and various areas of the history of the building,” said Foster + Partners partner Luis Matania.

“You have this juxtaposition of all these various areas in the building’s history, through to now, the 21st century.”

L-shaped in its plan, the building is organised around a large courtyard that the studio opened up to be used by the public and to greet visitors upon entry into the building.

Camphor trees placed across the courtyard informed by the 16th-century convent that previously existed on the site.

“The courtyard is no longer private, it becomes a democratic space that the community is invited to come through into and enjoy,” said Foster + Partners partner Stefan Behling.

“We reintroduced trees as a reference to the old convent and it allows the community to come and enjoy this beautiful space.”

Artworks by Italian artist Afro Basaldella from the building’s art cafe days abstractly depict imagery and scenes of Italy were carefully restored and set into the walls.

Large early-1900s ceiling paintings by Fabio Cipolla and Ettore Ballerini have also restored and incorporated above the marble interiors between ceiling panelling.

“It has been a complicated building and we have discovered things along the way,” said Matania.

“It has been an evolving design process, that has amended and adapted as we found new things, new painting and new aspects of the architecture”

White marble was used throughout the interior of Apple Via del Corso, covering the floors of each room and framing large windows that provide glimpses into adjoining rooms.

To the west of the courtyard, a grand staircase with vast mouldings and a former oculus on its ceiling was restored, structurally reinforced and fitted with locally sourced Carrara marble.

The firm recreated daylight within the grand stairwell by adding LED lighting to the oculus that changes with the time of day.

On the first floor, a long corridor connects a forum space with a Genius Bar and three retail areas.

The forum-style space will be used for community events, occupying what used to be the Palazzo’s ballroom a central point of the first floor.

In the Genius Bar, conservators restored a hand-painted geometrically patterned ceiling with decorative crown mouldings.

Wooden furniture and joinery were used throughout to bring warmth to the interior spaces.

Dark wood-framed doors and windows along the corridors and edge of the rooms open out onto Juliette balconies and a terrace that overlooks the courtyard below.

Camphor trees, olive trees and jasmine vines were placed across the terrace to reflect typical plant-filled Roman roof terraces.

Apple Via del Corso is one of many historic buildings the technology company has opened stores in, including the Foster + Partner designed Champs-Élysées store in Paris and the converted Washington DC library.

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Italian designer Andrew Kostman has created a metallic inflatable puffer jacket that is filled with helium instead of down and can be carried around like a balloon.

Called Helium-10000, the coat is inflated by the wearer using a valve near the hem and an accompanying canister of the lighter-than-air gas.

Although the buoyant garment does not lift the wearer off the ground, it can float on its own and be carried around like a balloon using a long dangling tag.

At home, it doubles up as an art piece and can be left to float on the ceiling in lieu of being hung on a coat rack.

“There is no benefit to it being able to fly,” Kostman told Dezeen.

“It is more an artefact designed to amaze and make people realise that more can be done if we overcome our traditional thinking and approach things from a different angle.”

The jacket is made in Japan and available in six metallic colourways, from an iridescent rainbow gradient to a deep black called Vanta.

Its plump blow-up volumes are rendered in an undisclosed synthetic sheeting material that Kostman said is lightweight and yet durable enough to withstand wear and tear.

“The jacket can’t have any coating or lining in order to make it float but the material is smooth and pleasant to the touch,” Kostman explained. “It feels like being wrapped in cotton candy.”

A branded helium canister is included with each jacket, allowing it to be refilled twice. Each charge keeps the Helium-10000 afloat for up to two weeks.

“Our technician is looking for the best solution to have more charges within the helium cylinder without compromising too much on its design,” the designer explained.

“It’s more complicated than I expected to tell you the truth.”

Another key hurdle that had to be overcome was fusing the various different panels that make up the jacket in a way that is secure while still allowing them to be inflated.

“No one wanted to take part in this project initially, discouraging me that it was impossible and that there were no technologies to weld inflatable volumes of this size,” Kostman said.

“The problem was to make the seams resistant enough for the jacket to be wearable. So the best option was to make them double-stitched, as an oval-shaped seam elongated and squeezed,” he continued.

“You don’t have to fill each volume independently since I’ve designed them to be interconnected with space in between the seams for helium to flow.”

The Helium-10000 is available as a limited edition of 100 pieces and at a starting price of $10,000.

A number of other fashion designers have experimented with inflatable garments and the overblown, exaggerated proportions they create.

Among them is Fredrik Tjærandsen, who enveloped models in giant rubber balloons for his Central Saint Martins graduate show, and Harikrishnan whose blow-up latex trousers went viral online after being featured on Dezeen.

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Flatpack furniture should be mandatory, in my humble opinion. I have changed multiple homes – first during my bachelor days as I worked long hours to starting our first home as a family – the only furniture I have retained across all these homes is my favorite photo frames. Every time we move, it breaks my heart to sell the furniture we have gathered through endless hours of searching across shops and had to let go of them mainly because it is insanely expensive to cart around your furniture wherever you go. Can you imagine my traditional Indian hardwood furniture being shipped and moved into my tiny Tokyo home? That would be a disaster!

What the world needs more of is minimal and elegant furniture like the O TRL by Annabella Hevesi. Annabella created this tray table as a versatile piece of furniture – use it to store your stationery, kitchen knick-knacks, or as a makeshift desk in work from home emergency scene – the pure and minimal aesthetics of this design make it a perfect match everywhere. The trolley has a slim and sleek silhouette and is constructed using a black MDF board, powder-coated steel, and rubber. Do not be fooled by its humble looks; this tray can bear its fair share of weight and move around smoothly, given its large weight-bearing wheels.

Honestly, at first glance, the design almost looks like a sketch. And we totally adore Annabella’s ability to take the design from concept to a manufactured product with minimum compromises on the envisioned design. After all, we all know that’s the hardest part. Sleek, versatile, and fun, this tray table defines the blueprint of what functional furniture design must be like, a 2020 version of Bauhaus, if you will.

Designer: Annabella Hevesi of IO line and round