Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen Showroom: recent graduate Johan Ansander has designed Maximus, a lounge chair for Blå Station with the soft, bulbous forms of a cushioned seat but made entirely from wood.

The Maximus easy chair is carved from solid ash wood using CNC routers. Its seat, back and legs are made as separate pieces although their joins are hardly visible, giving the chair a continuous form.

Blå Station describes Maximus as a “playful departure” from rational furniture styles.

The brand approached Ansander after his graduation show at the Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, where he exhibited the chair as part of his master’s degree project.

Ansander worked with a small sawmill just outside of Stockholm to realise the project, combining traditional craftsmanship with modern technologies.

“I have been inspired by theories claiming that we in the future, must find alternatives to global mass production and instead locally manufacture our everyday objects,” Ansander said.

Maximus is available with both clear and coloured lacquer finishes.

Product: Maximus
Designer: Johan Ansander
Brand: Blå Station
Contact: info@blastation.se

About Dezeen Showroom: Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

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Prefabricated architecture has been gaining a lot of popularity and momentum recently! It basically involves making buildings or building various components at a particular location, one that is better suited for construction, and then once completed, transporting it to the final site or location. Prefab architectural designs have a multitude of benefits – they keep costs down, ensure projects are more sustainable and efficient, and they also prioritize and pay attention to simplicity and modularity. And we have curated a collection of our favorite prefabricated designs for you – from cozy tiny homes to a sustainable home that looks like a cruise ship! These prefabricated designs are a part of a growing trend in modern architecture, and could be the future of it as well!

Developed from the Danish word Hyggee, Hüga was conceptualized, designed, and built over a span of 24 months, during which Grandio’s team of designers were able to produce a 45 m2 residence with space for a bedroom, living room, bathroom, kitchen, and dining area. The final results are these hüga units that are built with reinforced concrete and designed for minimal maintenance as well as reducing your energy costs. These compact homes can withstand all climates and adverse conditions, including earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes. Hüga homes are also mobile and modular so much so that you can extend your house in plan in just one day. Weighing about 55-Tn, Hüga requires a team and machinery for transportation but can be placed according to the prospective resident’s preference.

This prefab dwelling comes flat-packed in multiple boxes and can be assembled in 45 days without the help of heavy machinery. It uses extrusion-die aluminum framing that’s anchored with rebar to the ground or a poured concrete foundation. Just like a Lego set, there is a network of steel doughnuts that spans lengths of up to 30 feet to support the structure. The aluminum studs link seamlessly to joists and the exterior cladding is clipped onto the frame. It’s a method that could be extended to 45 feet which makes it modular and easier to expand in case the home belongs to a growing family. Pi House can be shipped anywhere, the system allows it to be the perfect structure for single-family homes as well as larger projects like social housing.

Exosteel comprises a group of modular steel homes that would be constructed using ​​a 3D-printed construction system that supports and distributes all the functional elements of the building. Mask Architects co-founders Danilo Petta and Öznur Pınar Çer felt inspired by Costantino Nivola’s sculpture work, in particular a travertine sculpture called ‘La Madre.’ Punctuating the terrain of a sloping mountainside in Sardinia, Exosteel is comprised of heart-shaped, white homes with center ‘energy towers,’ oriented in the same way as the head on Nivola’s ‘La Madre.’

If you are ever lost while trekking in harsh weather in Iceland, then you should pray and hope to find refuge in a glamping oasis like the Skyli Trekking Cabin. Skyli means “shelter” in Icelandic and it can provide shelter to 15 mountaineers at a time. The angular structure features four gabled roofs and resembles a tent but is actually clad in a steel facade to protect you from the weather. The bright blue color makes it easily visible in the rugged landscape while also paying homage to the architecture of the country’s capital. All components being pre-fabricated so that they could be transported flat, winched underneath a helicopter, and constructed in situ – a process Utopia Arkitekter estimates would take between two and three days.

Meet ARCspace, a modular architecture firm that is constantly creating innovative designs and material development to do its part in curbing the emissions for their industry using sustainable, affordable, prefabricated homes. All structures are prefabricated for highly efficient and quick builds which reduce emissions and minimizes waste. ARCspace reports the buildings are “spec-built from the ground up in 40-60% less time and cost than traditional construction.” Residents can fully customize their tiny homes or even scale up to the size of traditional homes and have a huge range of interior design details to choose from including optional elements that provide off-grid power and water. Some homes feature self-contained atmospheric water generators called Hydropanels that are grid-independent and pull a few liters of drinking water out of the air each day.

Sail House has a central structure called the main house with several guest houses bordering it and all nestled on the lush Bequia Island in the Caribbean – didn’t I say it literally brings a cruise home? Since the Caribbean is a notoriously difficult area to source building materials, the team made sure that the entire project – the main house and the guesthouses – were prefabricated offsite, flat-packed, and delivered in 15 shipping containers. This ensured minimal site impact to the sensitive ecosystem and was nearly zero waste which is important because otherwise, the construction waste would have had to be transported out of the island which would increase emissions.

This luxury cabin-style structure is located on the Dutch island of Texel in the Netherlands and is just a short walk to the North Sea. Designed by Rotterdam-based Orange Architects, the modern villa saves space thanks to its prefabricated construction and flexible layout. Yes, you read that right – it has a flexible layout which means instead of building separate rooms for different purposes that are divided by walls like a traditional home, the designers optimized the floor plan with prefab, multifunctional spaces that can be transformed or divided temporarily to create separate zones for different functions.

Modeled after the intricate paper folding art of Origami, the pod’s initial folded form can fit onto flatbed trucks for efficient and manageable shipping. Once positioned for assembly, the pod from Hariri & Hariri readily expands and unfolds to create a prefabricated and modular, single-story housing unit. Born out of a need for emergency shelter across the globe, the architects behind the pod note, “In the middle of a hurricane you don’t have time for a screwdriver.” With this in mind, the pod was designed to instantaneously unfold and build itself with the push of a button. Structured like a pop-up cardboard box, hinges and hidden panels strewn across the pod’s creases aid in the unit’s assembly process. Whether multiple emergency shelters are needed or if the pod is used as a luxury single home unit for a beachside vacation, the modular construction allows the pod to either be configured together with multiple pods to form community shelters or stand alone as a single prefabricated unit.

Studio Puisto collaborated with nature tourism entrepreneur Kari Vainio and installed the first prototype in the forest of Hyvinkää, Finland. One 1,205-square-foot, U-shaped villa is the core of the layout and consists of two accompanying studio units. All three units come with a keyless check-in system and ready-made furniture. Uni means “dream” in Finnish and it alludes to the dreams that aspiring hospitality entrepreneurs will be able to fulfill their own micro-resorts that won’t require the big capital investment that hotels do. This first Uni Villa even won the title of Best in Finland in 2020! Two courses were designed by Canadian golf course architect Thomas McBroom and are set in the most pristine environment between a natural forest and a lake.

Putting an absolutely new kind of spin on “Home Delivery”, Brette Haus’ prefabricated cabins are literally shipped to your location on the back of a trailer. In a matter of 3 hours, the home is placed on the site, unfolded, and secured in place, turning it from one weird wooden carton into a liveable cabin with anywhere between 22 to 47 sq. ft. of space (depending on the cabin’s variant). Each cabin takes roughly 8 weeks to fabricate and comes made entirely from carbon-neutral, weather-proof, and sustainable cross-laminated timber. There is no need for a permanent foundation… the cabins can easily be unfolded on any leveled ground before being secured in place using screw piles. The hinges on the cabin can survive up to 100 folding cycles.

This ergonomic mouse by Microsoft is made out of the plastic waste recovered from the water bodies that are decimating our planet beyond comprehension. This is another example of mindful recycling effort plays a part in saving the planet from doom.

Microsoft is on course to fulfill its zero waste goal by 2030 and give up single-use plastics in packaging by 2025, as a part of the larger recycling and sustainably goal. Their latest creation in collaboration with Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC), a global leader in the chemical industry is a testament to their noble efforts. The Silicon Valley giant revealed the all-new sustainable Microsoft Ocean Plastic Mouse at the annual Surface event to mark the occasion.

This first-of-a-kind Microsoft consumer electronic product was initially planned with the aim of infusing at least 10 percent recycled ocean plastic. After formulating the prototypes, the final version’s exterior shell came out with 20 percent recycled ocean plastic. Way more than the initial goal set by Microsoft! The Ocean Plastic Mouse also has packaging made out of 100 percent recyclable material – recyclable wood and sugarcane fibers to be precise. The plastic shell mixed with resin and other materials starts its journey from the oceans and waterways – in the form of waste plastic recovered from these water bodies. The plastic waste is then cleaned and processed into recyclable plastic resin pellets to procure the raw material for the final processing.

To take the sustainability efforts further, Microsoft is also offering a free mail-in program in select regions. Here you can send an old mouse to be recycled with help from Microsoft’s contracted partners. The best thing, this eco-friendly mouse can be pre-ordered right away for a price tag of $24.99.

As for functionality, it has got all the relevant functions of a Bluetooth wireless mouse with an average AA alkaline battery cell life of 12 months. Apart from that Microsoft touts its super responsive left/right-click buttons, fast-tracking sensors, and precise navigation. It also gets the three customizable buttons and the Swift Pair technology for quick pairing with your machine.

Designers: Microsoft and SABIC

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Although their motto is “No tools, no hassle”, the most defining characteristic of staxxiom’s furniture is that it’s so visually simple, you don’t even need a manual. With laser-cut pieces of wood that simply interlock to create your design, staxxiom is building on IKEA’s DIY culture by making their furniture more efficient, more eco-friendly, and as simplified as possible. That last part works in staxxiom’s favor too, because the simplified design gives their furniture a unified, wonderfully minimal aesthetic, along with the added benefit of being ridiculously easy to build too.

Designers: Richard Langone & Leilei Peng

Click Here to Buy Now: 25% off sitewide with exclusive coupon code “YANKO25”. Hurry, sale ends September 30th, 2021.

Try, for a second, to describe the parts of a table in the simplest way possible. You’ve got 4 legs and a tabletop surface, right? In reality, though, furniture is often much more complex than that. There are many more aspects, like glue, screws, bolts, threaded inserts, rubber feet, etc. that go into making a great table that you often forget to describe. staxxiom’s designs outright do away with these minor complexities by keeping their furniture designs as visually and physically simple as possible.

The table’s design is just a 3-part assembly, featuring two wide interlocking leg panels and a surface on top… along with tiny coupling blocks that plug into the gaps to hold the design together. staxxiom’s shelves and stools work the same way too – with parts that just interlock together, and coupling blocks that fill in the gaps. More often than not, you don’t even NEED a manual because even a child could assemble it, and the assembly process is about as time-consuming as making a paper plane.

This unique approach to designing furniture benefits all the stakeholders in the product’s cycle. For staxxiom, furniture’s extremely easy to produce as pieces of wood just need to be CNC-cut, flat-packed, and shipped. For the user, assembly becomes a breeze, but at the same time, you can disassemble and reassemble your products too if you plan on shifting houses (the press-fit coupling blocks are equally easy to remove, allowing you to pull apart your furniture when you want).

The third (often unnoticed) stakeholder is the environment, which stands to benefit because the furniture has a lower carbon footprint because it flat-packs while shipping, is durable enough to last long, and can easily be pulled apart and recycled when discarded. All of staxxiom’s furniture comes made from HDF or High-Density Fiber, a robust composite made from compressed sawdust, further reducing its environmental impact while increasing its lifespan – HDF is much more durable than particle board and has a lifespan of over 20 years.

staxxiom’s current collection includes a variety of stools, side tables, coffee tables, and cabinets. The number of parts for each design range between 3 and 5, which makes them incredibly simple to assemble while giving them a minimal aesthetic that comes to life with the furniture’s vibrant palette of colors. The wooden panels are CNC-cut, giving them incredibly precise tolerances while reducing waste. The HDF boards are designed to be incredibly good at load-bearing too, allowing even the smallest stools to support up to 500lbs. staxxiom’s even won the highly coveted Good Design Award for their intuitively simple, minimal, tool-free, and eco-friendly furniture!

Click Here to Buy Now: 25% off sitewide. Use exclusive coupon code “YANKO25”. Hurry, deal ends September 30th, 2021.

If you think about it, the art of telling the time has always had an element of performance to it. Whether it’s the sundial, which displayed the time through dancing shadows, or the cuckoo clock, which used mechanical chirping birds to indicate the time, the best clocks always have their signature flair… The MB&F x L’Epée 1839 Orb has its signature flair too – although, on a scale of 1-10 for visual drama, the Orb ranks a solid 20.

The Orb, created as a creative collaboration between MB&F and L’Epée, can be placed in closed or open orientations to display the time and the complex physical movement that powers the clock. The clock comes with an orb-shaped design comprising a circular face on the front and four petals (or elytra, given the Orb pulls inspiration from beetles) that give it its spherical eyeball-esque shape. When closed, the orb looks like, well, an orb that sits on a dock (to prevent it from rolling over). You can manually open out the Orb’s elytra, making it look like a beetle in flight, and even have it stand vertically, with the clock facing upwards. In this open orientation, the Orb also showcases its mesmerizing 1839 movement, designed and manufactured in-house by L’Epée.

Designed to be more like a sculptural jewel that tells time, the Orb’s uniquely interactive aesthetic allows you to really put it up on display as a centerpiece. The clock comes with a choice between a white and a black exterior and can be placed in a variety of orientations – as a circular orb, as a blossomed clock, or vertically, with the elytra serving as the clock’s legs. The clock’s state-of-the-art 1839 movement comes with a striking hour, which when enabled, allows it to chime every hour like a grandfather clock. The hour mechanism doesn’t just chime the passage of the hour, but rings multiple times to indicate the actual hour, like a church clock. This function can be repeated on demand or turned on and off. The movement also comes with an 8-day power reserve, and needs to be manually wound each week – which sounds like a bit of a drag if you ask me, but if you’re going to pay upward of $33,100 for an Orb of your own (yes, that’s how much it costs), you can surely afford to hire a butler who will wind the clock every week!

Designers: MB&F & L’Epée