Hasta La Ideas

As children, we loved camping simply for the fact that we had sleepovers in tents, and ate an unlimited amount of roasted s’mores! However, as we grew older, camping began to hold a different meaning. It was an opportunity to simply get away, relax, and re-connect with nature! A chance to leave behind our urban woes, and enjoy the simplicity of the outdoors. Although, camping has now received a massive makeover and a new ferocious nickname – Glamping! Glamping is the new, improved and dazzling version of camping.  Luxurious tents, glamping cabins, glamping trailers, and innovative campsites are all a result of the Glamping movement. So, we’ve curated a collection of super comfy, cozy, and advanced camping options that’ll have you itching to make your next getaway a Glamping one!

You can find these unique tents in the Borgloon forest in Belgium if you are looking for a safer alternative to the usual touristy destinations post the pandemic. In fact, it has gained attention only now when people are looking to camp outdoors because it is safer, won’t require you to fly, budget-friendly and avoids crowds. Designed by the Dutch artist Dre Wapenaar, these ‘Tranendreef’ tree tents blend architecture and sculpture into one functional structure. The tent is suspended above the ground and basically hangs on the tree like fruit. The guests use a ladder to get inside/outside. It can host two adults and two small children. Originally installed as part of a public art project called ‘Pit’ (hence the avocado shape we assume) organized by Z33, it brought art into the public space of Borgloon. The designer also created ‘field furniture’ – seating, washing, toilet, and BBQ units to complete the camping site with the tents.

If you always wanted to hook a hardcore off-roading trailer to match your Jeep’s capability to conquer tough terrain, then the Switchback trailer by Off Grid Trailers is a god-sent blessing. Perfectly tailored for people who are a bit skeptical about going for an off-roading trip to the Rocky Mountains with a trailer towing at the rear, this hardcore trailer won’t let you have any semblance of even the slightest doubt. If your Jeep can conquer that stretch of a rocky patch (not meant for your average vehicle), then this trailer will have you covered. The lightweight, compact-sized construction of the Switchback makes it one of the best options for blokes who only get the adrenaline rush when their 4×4’s independent suspension is stretched to the limit.

The AERIAL A1 is a fusion of the best aspects of three separate products. It combines the safety and sheltering of a tent, with the comfort and carefree nature of a hammock and the tautness/springy-ness of slacklines. Designed by industrial designers with a true passion for the outdoors, the AERIAL A1 quite literally elevates the idea of camping. Rather than pitching tents in the ground, this one straps itself to trees (or even cars), taking your camping experience up a notch. Climb into the AERIAL A1 and you literally feel like you’re sleeping on clouds. The tent’s slackline structure requires you to stretch the base out so it’s virtually flat (unlike a hammock, which naturally takes a curve)… this effectively gives the AERIAL A1’s tent-bed its ‘spring’, making it feel like a cross between a hammock and a waterbed. The AERIAL A1 can easily be mounted over rocks, roots, or even a river.

Camping and caravanning have always been about getting down to the bare necessities of life, living life on the road and at the mercy of the elements. However, New Zealand-based design and architecture firm W2 has decided to help amp up the experience! Their revolutionary trailer design, ‘Romotow’, the name an amalgamation of ‘room to move’ contains all the usual RV features but with an innovative 90-degree twist. With the press of a simple electric button, it swivels open, rotating at 90 degrees, to reveal an open synthetic teak deck. With this, it increases the living space by 70 percent, and the area can also be used as a party deck! Measuring 30 feet by 8.5 feet and offering 290 square feet of living space (the same as a lot of tiny apartments these days), the caravan comes along with a living area, bedroom, kitchenette, and bathroom, all with stylish fixtures and spacious interiors.

Designed especially to bring people closer to the great outdoors, Bivvi is a modular and transportable A-frame cabin that can either be attached to your car for road trips or to a chosen foundation for permanent placement. The creators at Bivvi make up a team of travelers and adventure-seekers– they built Bivvi so that we can be too. They set out to build Bivvi after noticing the inherently immobile and expensive nature of cabins and other modes of residence for travelers already on the market. Taking on mobility as their main source of inspiration, each Bivvi Cabin can be attached to a trailer hitch and tow so that they can be transported anywhere. The team behind Bivvi even outfit their A-frame cabins with off-grid capabilities including three 600W AC outlets and a 100W solar panel, so they really do mean anywhere.

The advent of recreational vehicles has brought a new dimension to the old-school camping setup. Such camper trailers literally bring the comfort, convenience, and luxury of your cozy home to the wheels – and every new design amazes me. The Bailey Discovery D4-2 Camper Trailer is one such creation, tailored for adventure enthusiasts who can’t help but satiate their wanderlust – exploring the untrodden trails. The USP of this camper trailer is its inflatable awning which creates almost double the private space you need for your escapades under the star-studded nights. On the inside, D4-2 is equipped with all the amenities and a fully furnished interior. Enough to suffice the needs of a couple on their long road trip – with the odd guest coming along the way for a couple of days. The big windows on all sides and the skylight fills the interiors with enough sunlight for a calming feel.

Nissan NV350 Caravan Office Pod Concept is your ticket to freedom when it comes to working productively after witnessing the most mesmerizing sunset from your favorite picturesque location on the outskirts of the city or maybe even on an adventure trip. The mobile office pod housed inside the back of the van is something you’ll be so desperate to jump right into. In ways, it can rival the most jaw-dropping work-from-home setups without a semblance of doubt. The smartphone-controlled office pulls out from the back of the van out in the open and is for sure a dope for people who love working amidst natural settings.

Land Rover Defender with its robust chassis and solid front and rear axles is an iconic vehicle for off-roading, overlanding, and basically unleashing your ride into the wilderness! One thing that can really propel its image as an ultimate off-roader is the ability to take it camping without having to haul anything behind. Felix Collier thinks that’s a brilliant idea – he has therefore gone forward and built his Land Rover Defender as a camper for where the road may take him – highlight being a pop-up canvas roof that creates more headroom in the cabin. Felix loves exploring and driving into the wilderness away from the crowds and mainstream routes, which is ideally why he has ventured out to build this Defender camper with plush interiors and basic amenities. Speaking of which, the rear cabin is neatly done in wood including the worktop made with the expensive sequoia wood.

The Flite+ by Tentsile straps to trees, giving you airborne accommodation in the outdoors! While most tents become really messy ordeals when the floor is wet, cold, hard, or infested, the Tentsile Flite+ has no problem, because it straps to three trees, creating a hammock + home that suspends above the ground. The Flite+ has a triangular schematic covering an area of 40sq.ft., allowing it to form two living spaces with enough storage for some gear as well. It takes all of 10 minutes to set up and comes equipped with an insect mesh top that gives you a view of your surroundings without letting the critters get to you. It also comes with an additional tarp sleeve you can slide on top for when it gets too sunny, or begins raining.

 Meet Aeri, an inflatable canopy that you can carry anywhere inside a backpack, and inflate in 3 minutes with the press of just one single button. Aeri helps you effortlessly set up a canopy or an outdoor shelter in an instant. Designed to be used for recreational outdoor use, Aeri can easily be carried to the beach, campsites, the park, or even your backyard. It uses a four-pillar arch design that provides the perfect shelter against sun, wind, and rain, and its entirely inflatable design runs on a rechargeable air pump that can be operated independently by a single person with zero assistance. The patent-pending inflatable shelter fits into a moderately sized backpack, and when unfolded, can comfortably provide a 10ft x 10ft shelter to an entire family or a group of 5-6 people.

For more such cool and comfortable camping tents, check out Part 1 of this post!

This week on Dezeen, Salone del Mobile revealed its plans for an “unmissable” edition of the furniture fair called Supersalone curated by architect Stefano Boeri.

Dezeen teamed up with Boeri and Salone del Mobile to live stream the press conference in which plans for the fair, which has been rebranded “Supersalone”, were announced.

The fair, which has been moved to September this year due to the coronavirus pndemic, will be fully open to the public for the first time. Visitors will also be able to buy the pieces on show by scanning QR codes for the products, which will be mounted on parallel walls designed by architect Andrea Caputo.

Dezeen’s editor in chief Marcus Fairs also interviewed Boeri about his vision for the fair.

“I believe that this will be a way to take a risk in the right direction and demonstrate that the Salone is alive, that Milan is alive and that generally, our field is still dynamic and open to new conditions,” the architect said.

We also continued our coverage of the Venice Architecture Biennale, including speaking to visitors about their impressions of the “interesting and courageous” event.

The German pavilion divided visitors’ opinion with its installation of QR codes on the walls of an empty building. We also covered the Bit.Bio.Bot exhibition that showed how algae can be used as a protein and an air purifier.

The architecture world lost a “living legend” this week, as Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha died from lung cancer at the age of 92.

Mendes da Rocha was known for his signature concrete designs and his buildings are credited with modernising the city of São Paulo. Among his numerous accolades were also the RIBA Royal Gold Medal and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

Graphic designer Ken Garland, who re-designed the iconic peace sign for the Campaign Against Nuclear Disarmament, passed away at the age of 92.

He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Medal at the London Design Festival 2020 for his “significant contribution to the development of graphic design since the mid-twentieth century” and was a teacher, photographer and writer as well as a designer.

The architecture world also lost Terence Riley, the former chief curator of architecture and design at MoMA, who died at the age of 66.

Riley held the role at MoMA from 1992 until 2005. He was the director of the Miami Art Museum between 2006 and 2010 and lived in Miami until the end of his life.

British designer Thomas Heatherwick spoke to Dezeen about his newly opened Little Island project in New York, City, which he told Dezeen was designed to enable visitors to “leave Manhattan behind”. The park sits in the Hudson River, close to the Meatpacking District on Manhattan’s west side, and features an undulating topography supported by 132 concrete columns.

Heatherwick’s Vessel, also in New York, reopened this week with a new buddy system as well as signage and messages to prevent suicides.

Three tall buildings were in the news this week. Scottish studio Kettle Collective unveiled its vision for a 150-storey supertall skyscraper in Russia that would be the second tallest building in the world.

In the UK, a 135-metre-high double tower in Croydon, South London, was completed by HTA Design, which says it is the world’s tallest modular housing scheme. The towers are covered in bottle-green glazed terracotta tiles and have 38 and 44 stories.

New York is set to get the tallest residential building in the world once the 472-metre Central Park Tower, which topped out in September 2019, officially completes later this year.

In awards news, British-Ghanian architect David Adjaye was presented with his RIBA Royal Gold Medal at a star-studded virtual event, which saw Barack Obama and Bono among the many celebrities who called in to praise him.

House Recast by Studio Ben Allen also won an award this week. The “rich and interesting refurbishment” of a Victorian house was named the best new home improvement in London at the Don’t Move, Improve! awards.

Popular projects this week included Paulo Merlini Architects’ house with a stone-plinth base, a palazzo in Rome that has been transformed into an Apple Store by Foster + Partners and a London council house with pink plaster walls.

Our lookbooks this week focused on the kitchen and looked at breakfast bars and compact kitchens.

This week on Dezeen is our regular roundup of the week’s top news stories. Subscribe to our newsletters to be sure you don’t miss anything.

The post This week Stefano Boeri unveiled his plans for Supersalone in Milan appeared first on Dezeen.

Lamps are one of those handy and essential products we all need in our homes – whether they’re wall-mounted or meant for our desks! But we’ve all pretty much seen our fair share of the usual conventional lamps, and we have about 3-4 of those in our homes. So, we’ve curated a collection of steampunk-inspired, raw and rustic lamp designs to elevate your lighting game! These eccentric and grungy lamp designs are a far cry from the lamps we’ve grown so accustomed to. There’s a unique lamp design here for everyone!

@_designerlight built this extremely steampunk-esque lamp! Metallic chains and copper pipes accentuate this unique handmade desk lamp.

Designed by Yuri Matytsin, this handmade wall-mounted lamp was built using bicycle parts and an Edison bulb!

@_designerlight created this little robotic lamp! The head of the robot functions as the bulb holder. I would love to have this Wally-like lamp on my desk.

TK Weld ( @tkweld ) designed this bow and arrow-inspired lamp! Instead of the arrowhead, the designer placed a little bulb.

Lockwood and Litchfield Customs ( @llcustoms19 ) fitted a bulb into a fire extinguisher creating a super cool grungy lighting structure!

Handy Light designed two hands holding two Edison bulbs, creating intriguing wall-mounted lamps, that would be quirky and artistic additions to any living space!

JB Steel Design designed this circular steampunk lamp, with a flame-shaped bulb placed right in the center of it!

Built from a heavy steel chain, this desk lamp by JB Steel Design almost looks like a microscope! Steampunk meets science in this innovative lamp design.

This vintage industrial piece by Iluminación Medel features a rusty pipe man grilling a metallic marshmallow over a flame-inspired bulb!

A vintage typewriter that also functions as a desk lamp?! It’s the perfect accessory for my desk. Count me in!

It’s not entirely common for a water-borne animal to be a strong source of inspiration for an air-borne product. Sure, the penguin or the kingfisher have provided design cues that have helped understand fluid and aerodynamics, but Anton Weaver’s Hammerhead Drone takes inspiration from the popular shark almost as a visual tribute, as opposed to nature-inspired design mimicry. The Hammerhead Drone comes with a quad-propeller design and a frame that creates protective rings around each propeller. Its silhouette resembles that of the hammerhead shark rather well, with the propellers looking like the familiar offset eyes of the large carnivorous fish.

For over a century, scientists have speculated why hammerheads evolved such an odd shape and whether having eyes so far apart would enhance their vision. It was speculated (and eventually even tested) that the sharks, which first made their appearance 450 million years ago, had much better binocular vision thanks to their massively offset eyes. It would help them zero down on the location of prey with much more accuracy than other sharks, and the highly offset nostrils helped them even identify the direction of enticing odors. That history lesson aside, the Hammerhead Drone recreates that same visual appearance of the shark with the way its body projects outwards to form protective rings around each propeller. This makes the drone much more resilient during flight, allowing it to easily recover after bumping into an object.

Aside from providing a physical system to prevent hardware damage to the drone’s propellers, the Hammerhead Drone comes with a bunch of other fail-safes that help it avoid collisions. The drone comes equipped with multiple cameras and sensors on every side that help it autonomously avoid obstacles. Red LED strips on the front and back help illuminate the areas too, and allow you to easily spot the drone from a distance. For video recording, the drone comes equipped with a primary action-camera mounted on a 3-axis stabilizer – a common detail with most drones. The rear houses a removable battery pack that powers the entire unit, and the drone even comes with unique landing gears that help cushion impact as the drone makes a descent towards the ground. A handheld remote control lets you operate the Hammerhead from a distance, and you can view what the drone’s main camera sees using a companion viewfinder app or program on your smartphone.

Designer: Anton Weaver

NYC-based startup Kelekona has debuted a new, first-of-its-kind eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) vehicle concept. Whereas most concepts (and prototypes) in the category propose or accommodate two people, Kelekona’s envisions 40 passengers, along with a pilot, for each flight. Utilizing four banks, each containing two very large ducted fans, the blimp-shaped aircraft would purportedly be able to travel 330 miles per charge at a speed that’s equivalent to an hour between LA and San Francisco. Read more about the technology behind the concept at Slash Gear.

Image courtesy of Kelekona