Let’s take a minute to just soak in the creativity that’s filled in this roundup of award-winning furniture designs from last year’s A’ Design Award and Competition. Now the purpose of this roundup is twofold. If you’re a fan of furniture design (either as a design lover, or as a furniture designer yourself), go ahead and bookmark this page for inspiration, or add these images to your Pinterest by clicking the Pin button at the top left of any image. The second purpose is to spark your imagination and get those creative juices flowing so that one day, you too could design something worthy of a design award.

Now if you DO have a design that’s relatively new or just sitting patiently in your portfolio, leveraging its creative appeal to win a design award can actually do wonders for your career. You’re in time to send your work over to the A’ Design Awards, with the deadline for early submissions being June 30th. The multidisciplinary design award program spans a whole variety of categories, ranging from the traditional design disciplines like furniture, interiors, architecture, lighting, consumer tech, to more niche areas like social design, differently-abled design, education design, and even jewelry design. The international award program is hosted every year, with a grand interdisciplinary jury of 211 experts from different fields for its current 2021-2022 edition! So if you’ve got yourself a great design with a whole lot of potential, go ahead and let it boost your career and brand. If not, don’t worry! This showcase should provide enough creative fodder to motivate and inspire you!

Register to participate in the A’ Design Awards now. Hurry! Deadline for early submissions end June 30th, 2021

Shelter Desk by Joao Teixeira

The Shelter desk is a project that came to life because the designer was on a quest for the perfect desk. If you are someone who loves to have a clean, organized, clutter-free desk then this is the one for you! It was designed keeping in mind all the devices, wires, and accessories that live on our workstations, however, Shelter still remains minimal while maximizing the value of a desk. There are three slim drawers on the front side that are big enough to store your gadgets, like tablets or laptops. The back drawer was designed for you to hide all your cables and chargers. But the beauty of this desk lies in the curved drawers that give this desk its fluidity while retaining the functionality of the design. “This is a personal project I wanted to develop for a long time, I’ve designed it with a minimal approach and dynamic lines aligning the angles of each component for better fluidity,” says designer Joao Teixeira.

Hourglass Multifunctional Shelf by Yu Ren

The hourglass shelf takes inspiration from the passage of time, and the functionality of the shelf changes throughout the day. Starting as a coat rack in the early mornings that holds your outdoor wear, the product’s main functionality becomes that of a shelf – to keep your knick-knacks in place. Finally, as the sun goes down, the design works as a detachable lamp, giving light and completing its cycle across the day. “The hourglass is the symbol of time, and the charm of time affects the tide-ups and downs, years change. The change of different roles reminds people to follow the direction of time, perceive the years and harvest exquisite life”, mentions designer Yu Ren.

Tango Multifunctional Pouf by Ryszard Manczak

Designed as a response to an increasing need for modular furniture for smaller apartments, the Tango Multifunctional Pouf transforms into practically anything you need, from a set of benches to a couch, a lounging sofa, and even a mattress. The award-winning poufs are shaped like triangular extrusions that are attached together by a layer of fabric (sort of like a cushion-version of a Toblerone bar). This connecting fabric acts as a hinge, allowing the triangular poufs to be folded and rearranged. The name Tango stems from the phrase ‘it takes two to tango’, hinting at how two pouf sets can come together in a variety of ways. The poufs are made using soft recycled foam on the inside covered with a layer of coconut fibers. Finally, they’re clad in a layer of wool fabric, giving them their soft, fuzzy, and warm exterior. Together, two sets/strips of these triangular pouf modules make up a wide range of furniture-types, giving you a design solution that’s versatile, interactive, and incredibly fun to look at!

Qwork Pod Office Furniture by Mohamed Mostafa Radwan

The Qwork Pod is an air-tight pod system that wants to make working in offices safe while we figure out long-term solutions. It protects the employees and can make it easy to monitor how many employees are in per square meter of the space – it also makes contact tracing convenient in larger offices. Its hexagonal shape lets companies arrange it in any format to suit their physical office – it is like assembling a beehive to keep all the bees healthy and happy! It can be customized to fit right-angled corners and can be elongated as per the needs. This conceptual work pod features an automatic handle-free acrylic door that is controlled by facial recognition. It also includes ventilation fans and air purifiers to keep a continuous flow of air that is safe to breathe. The designer envisions the Qworkntine pod to be made from hygienic, non-porous materials that will be easy to clean and disinfect. The skylight makes it better for those who may not enjoy tight spaces.

Fluid Interior Cabinet by Elena Kornilova

There’s something very nontraditional about the Fluid Interior Cabinet, and it’s apparent the second you open one of the cabinet doors. Designed to look like an abstract piece of art inspired by Chinoiserie (or European mimicry of Oriental art) when closed, the Fluid cabinet completely surprises you when you realize that its doors have fluid edges too! It’s definitely a statement piece, and really has no functional edge over a standard cabinet, but its element of shock-and-awe certainly warrants winning an award, no? The cabinet comes with a rather unusual cork outer paneling (which gives it an even more unique appearance), and is capped off by the strangest, most hypnotic asymmetrical bronze handles!

Lu Chair by Edoardo Accordi

Folding chairs are designed as space-saving tools, made to be opened out only when they’re needed. The Lu Chair by Edoardo Accordi, however, was designed for travel! Designed to fold into the format of a backpack, the Lu Chair is furniture you can carry around with you, assembling where you want or need! It’s still a space-saving tool, but it’s much more limitless, in the sense that it doesn’t sit in the corner of a large hall, waiting to be opened out… instead, it’s your own personal chair that you can carry on your back and flip open whenever you want. Designer Edoardo Accordi explains, “Many times we find ourselves having to put away objects, perhaps to make room, perhaps to clean the house and sometimes even to take them with us, but above all for furniture of a certain level it is always very difficult. This is where Lu chair was born, a dining chair suitable for different types of target, from the most elegant and sophisticated with an eye to detail but also to a younger, fashion-conscious audience. The design is innovative and elegant at the same time and the name “Lu” derives precisely from “luggage” because of its ease of being resealable and transportable wherever you want.”

Elytra Space Saver Coffee Table by Radhika Dhumal

In an unusually beautiful case of nature-inspired design, the Elytra table by Radhika Dhumal expands in size by ‘spreading its wings’! The table comes inspired by beetles and the way their wings nest perfectly around their body. The table itself comes with perfectly natural bug-like proportions that fit in well as garden decor, and uses two ‘wings’ to expand in surface, much like the beetle. Elytra’s design is dominated by rounded forms that give it a friendly, pet-like demeanor and its four legs are positioned in a way that gives the Elytra its unique, animal-like stance. The table’s surfaces are split into four broad parts, including a wooden ‘head’ and ‘body’ as well as two glass-inlay wings that can be opened out to expand the table’s surface to store an extra few cups of tea, a planter or two, and perhaps a notebook to doodle your ideas on!

Grille Bookcase by Wei Huang

With the intricate appeal of the grill you’d expect to seen on a window or an ornate fence, the Grille Bookcase is a wonderfully geometric piece of furniture that’s designed to look great with or without books kept inside it! The incredible part is its ability to look ornate even when empty, so it doesn’t really strike you as an empty bookshelf but rather as an eye-catching piece of furniture. Its oddly geometric shelves aren’t designed to efficiently hold most books, but then again, that’s the beauty of the Grille – it has an ability to create breathing spaces with its nonconforming design. Instead of letting you dump objects into it, the Grille Bookcase invites you to make your own collage of books, trinkets, and other personal artifacts… plus, the shelf is modular too, made from individually nesting wooden boxes that can either be rearranged or even taken out and used as stools!

Bubble Chair by Grigorii Gorkovenko

Can you make metal appear soft and inviting? Sure, some cars like the VW Beetle look softer than most, and if you’ve ever seen any of Jeff Koons’ work, he sure knows how to make objects look soft despite their metallic polished finish. However, these aren’t objects you necessarily sit on. You sit inside the VW Beetle, not on its metal exterior, so that softness is purely visual and doesn’t necessarily translate to a tactile experience. The Bubble Chair, however, makes ‘metallic softness’ a multisensorial experience. A Silver Winner of the 2021 A’ Design Award, the chair explores dichotomies. It’s soft on appearance and hard to touch, looks playful but is equally sombre with its grey finish, and since it’s made from metal, it remains cold in cooler atmospheres, and becomes hot in warmer temperatures. Like designer Grigorii Gorkovenko says, “what can be said about BUBBLE for sure – is that nobody can call it boring.”

Balance Desk and Work Manager by Hernan Gregorio and Julia Stabio

Styled to almost look like a modern-day iMac, the Balance work manager is a large screen for your workspace, giving you an organized, whiteboard-esque experience that focuses all your productivity-tools in one spot. Designed to be used with a laptop (because a desktop monitor would just obscure everything), the Balance has its own notepad, calendar, whiteboard, clock, lamp, and a mini-shelf for stationery and other items. It takes your plain-jane workdesk and turns it into a much more productivity-inducing one. Sort of like widgets on a desktop screen that let you keep track of your work and your day, the Balance is the offline version of just that, giving you all the tools you need to stay on top of your work without necessarily having a cluttered desk, because everything is so neatly mounted on its vertical surface!

Register to participate in the A’ Design Awards now. Hurry! Deadline for early submissions ends June 30th, 2021

Since 2018, LEGO has been making strides towards sustainability initiatives including removing single-use plastic from their boxes and producing specialty elements from bio-polyethylene, a natural polymer sourced from sugarcane. Today, the iconic toy company reveals its latest sustainability effort, a prototype brick produced from recycled PET plastic. Derived from discarded plastic bottles, LEGO’s new sustainable prototype marks the culmination of three years worth of testing over 250 variations of PET plastics. The result, a LEGO brick constructed entirely from recycled materials that meet an array of different requirements, including safety, quality, play, and perhaps most exciting, clutch power.

Following a year of testing and reassessing of different PET formulations, LEGO will consider moving onto a pilot production phase, which would bring the recycled LEGO blocks into product boxes to hit the shelves for purchase. Sourced from a single one-liter PET plastic bottle, LEGO’s patent-pending PET formulation can produce ten 2×4 bricks, using a custom compounding method to ensure classic LEGO structure and secure linkage. Currently, the prototype is a blend of recycled PET plastics and additives that work to strengthen the recycled plastic and in turn meet specialized LEGO requirements. Vetted by the USA’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as the European Food and Safety Authority (EFSA), LEGO’s new recycled composition guarantees the same quality building blocks we’ve come to expect from the mega toy company.

Speaking on the brand’s latest step towards producing sustainable and recycled building blocks and the prototype’s proximity to pre-existing bricks, LEGO’s Vice President of Environmental Responsibility notes, “We are super excited about this breakthrough. The biggest challenge on our sustainability journey is rethinking and innovating new materials that are as durable, strong, and high quality as our existing bricks — and fit with LEGO elements made over the past 60 years. With this prototype, we’re able to showcase the progress we’re making.”

Designer: LEGO

From a single 10-liter PET plastic bottle, ten 2×4 LEGO bricks can be produced.

Complete with the same quality as pre-existing LEGO bricks, the new recycled bricks meet every safety, play, and clutch power requirement.

Following three years worth of testing, LEGO finally found an ideal PET formulation for its new recycled brick prototype.

By incorporating strengthening additives, LEGO’s recycled prototype maintains the same quality and strength as pre-existing LEGO bricks.

Artist Mary Mattingly has designed a sphere filled with native plants that filter water in a gravity-fed system to mimic New York City‘s water system.

Named Watershed Core, the installation in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, was designed to draw attention to issues around quality, access and privatisation of water in the city.

Mattingly‘s sculpture mimics the workings of New York City’s drainage basin, which includes aqueducts, reservoirs and tunnels.

It is part of her multiform project Public Water that includes a digital campaign and education initiatives alongside Watershed Core.

The installation is a 10-foot (three-metre) tall open-air spherical sculpture made from metal supporting restaurant trays filled with native plants.

Rainwater is collected by the sculpture, where it is cleaned by the filtration elements of plants, soil, sand, rock and a layer of carbon through a process called phytoremediation.

“Watershed Core is a sculpture that describes the geology of parts of New York City’s drinking watershed through carbon, soils, rocks and plants,” Mattingly told Dezeen.

“The installation filters rainwater for drinking,” she continued.

“Water moves through the trays and into the water bottles at the bottom of the sculpture. There is a backup system inside the sculpture where water from Prospect Park can be added in case of a prolonged period without rain. This system uses a hand pump and several buckets.”

Mattingly completed the project with More Art, a New York-based non profit art organisation that focuses on socially-driven public art projects.

Watershed Core aims to raise awareness of how we can all become better water stewards in our understanding of where clean water comes from, and how it is governed.

Growing up in an agricultural town outside of New York City, Mattingly noticed how the already pesticide-polluted well that provided water to her town began to accrue more contaminates over time when it was privatised.

This experience led the artist to investigate water and its politics in America, where the country’s freshwater supplies are at risk of running low due to decreasing precipitation and increasing populations.

“I’ve been tracking water privatisation around the US and I began working with More Art on this research in 2018. We focused on New York City’s public drinking water system” said Mattingly.

“Working together, we began focusing on highlighting public water systems that we thought were working well. They were more equitable, environmental and regenerative than the private systems, or both public and private systems.”

Through Watershed Core and its various other programmes, Public Water intends to share the strengths of New York’s water system that over eight million people depend on daily.

“We’re eager to share what steps have been taken to begin for the system to be more equitable, and look at how we can help in stewarding these watershed areas,” explained Mattingly.

More Art and Mattingly have also created a self-guided walking tour that connects Watershed Core to Prospect Park’s ecoWEIR, a natural water filtration system that has recently been installed to remove nutrients from the park’s watercourse that lead to the development of harmful algae.

Mary Mattingly is an American artist whose work explores ecology and sustainability.

More Art is a New York-based non-profit art organisation.

Other projects that capture water and put it to use include rain-harvesting panels designed primarily for drought-stricken cities that can be fitted onto the sides of buildings for people to catch their own water.

Photography is by Manuel Molina Martagon, courtesy of More Art.

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You see gears in action and they’re pretty easy to fathom. Metal wheels with interlocking teeth – rotate one wheel and the other wheel rotates in the opposite direction. Change the size of one wheel and it affects the speed at which the other wheel rotates. That’s basically how any simple gearbox on an automobile/bicycle works, translating rotations from a motor or your feet into rotating wheels. What happens when you replace the teeth with magnets? The video above wonderfully explains how gears can work without the mechanical action of interlocking teeth… in fact, they can work without even touching each other! These magnetic gears are pretty interesting and whimsical to look at!

YouTuber Magnetic Games shows how these gears work by putting them together from scratch. With 3 3D-printed wheels, the apparatus comes to life. One wheel holds 32 magnets (16 on each side), while the other houses 8 magnets (4 on each side). A third stationary wheel comes with bolts attached in each hole (helping the magnetic attraction pass from one wheel to another), and the apparatus is set up with the wheels on a common axle.

Rotating one wheel causes the other to turn in the opposite direction. The wheel with more magnets rotates at a slower pace, while the wheel with less magnets rotates with a higher speed (sort of like a larger gear and smaller gear). Obviously, the magnetic resistance isn’t comparable to the physical resistance of metal gears (you couldn’t really use these in a car or bicycle), but it DOES highlight a unique relationship between gears and magnets – something I knew nothing of until now! Plus, think about it this way, less physical contact = less wear-and-tear…

Via TheAwesomer

Canadian firm Michael Green Architecture used materials such as mass plywood panels and cross-laminated timber to construct two buildings at an Oregon university.

The buildings are part of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, a public institution in the city of Corvallis.

Both structures were designed by MGA, or Michael Green Architecture, which is based in Vancouver. The firm specialises in using mass timber – the collective term for engineered wood products like glue-laminated (glulam) and cross-laminated timber (CLT).

The larger of the two buildings, Peavy Hall, houses learning, research and social spaces. The other structure, the AA “Red” Emmerson Advanced Wood Products Laboratory, contains space for developing and testing wood products.

Composed of two intersecting bars, Peavy Hall is adjoined to the existing Richardson Hall and totals 83,000 square feet (7,711 square metres).

A primary goal for the team was to create an environment that fosters collaboration and embodies the research taking place at the college.

“The building itself is designed to be a teacher and a living laboratory – something to interact with and to learn from,” the team said.

For the building’s structural system, the team used different types of mass-timber elements.

Floorplates and shear walls are formed of CLT, while columns and beams are made of glulam timber. The roof is constructed of durable mass plywood panels.

Facades are clad in local red alder wood that was modified through a process called acetylation, which increases the material’s dimensional stability and resistance to rot. The off-white wooden cladding is paired with large expanses of glass.

Inside, the three-storey building contains light-filled rooms of varying sizes.

“Classroom and lab spaces range from small to large, interior and exterior, facilitating a range of teaching styles in an inspiring environment for students to study all aspects of the forest landscape,” the team said.

At the heart of Peavy Hall is a double-height atrium with towering wooden columns, designed to evoke the sensation of being in the forest. The lofty space is connected to an arboretum with a curated collection of plants.

The building has several cutting-edge features, including a “rocking wall system” that is the first of its kind in North America, according to the team.

Designed to help the building endure an earthquake with minimal damage, the system has shear walls that are divided into separate sections and are connected vertically by a post-tension system.

“This allows the walls to move and to self-centre during an event, and for components to be selectively replaced only as needed post-earthquake,” the team said.

Peavy Hall also has a monitoring system that tracks the performance of the wooden structural system. Sensors gather data on movement and moisture levels.

“This data will be used for research into the performance of mass timber structures for the life of the building and will inform the future of good practice in building with mass timber,” the team said.

The project’s second building – the Wood Products Laboratory – is located a short walk from Peavy Hall. It houses the TallWood Design Institute, which is dedicated to advancing knowledge about the use of wood products in buildings.

Translucent polycarbonate panels and structural wood panels form the exterior of the rectangular building, which encompasses 18,000 square feet (1,672 square metres). The structural system consists of glulam and mass-plywood components.

Inside, the building has expansive areas for developing and testing wood products.

A bay dedicated to manufacturing is equipped with robotics and fabrication equipment. A second bay is for structural investigations and features an extra-strong floor that can support assemblies up to three storeys high.

Since its founding in 2012, MGA has been a pioneer in the use of mass timber. Other projects by the firm include the seven-story T3 tower in Minneapolis, which has a structure built entirely from wooden slabs, columns and beams.

In 2018, MGA was acquired by the Silicon Valley design-build company Katerra, which recently announced it is shutting down. MGA told Dezeen that the closure will have no impact on its operations, and principals Michael Green and Natalie Telewiak remain the controlling directors of the firm.

Photography is by Ema Peter and Josh Partee.

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