“The advantage is that you can create threads of any size and shape of bolt and in a variety of materials (wood, plastic, gypsum board, metal, etc.),” he writes. “The disadvantage is that [hot glue] is weak against heat, so you need to be careful about frictional heat when tightening bolts.”
While the connection’s probably not robust enough for furniture, I’d love to see Matthias Wandel do a scientifically-measured stress test to see how much force (or fastening/unfastening) it takes for the connection to fail.
I’m sure the more serious among you will pooh-pooh this method, but the more I live out here in the middle of nowhere, the more I’m coming to admire improvised solutions with whatever tools you have on hand.
Manufactured two blocks from the Mediterranean Sea, Bobo Choses produces clothing for kids. With a focus on activity rather than gender, their designs are comfortable and colorful. The brand’s Strawberry All Over jogging pants are made from 100% organic cotton and feature an elasticated waistband and cuffs. Available for kids aged three/six months through 24/36 months, this lavender-colored garment draws inspiration from nature.
Basée à Budapest, en Hongrie, Tamas Kanya créée des mandalas. Ces derniers sont pour le moins originaux puisqu’ils sont composés d’éléments naturels que l’artiste collecte lors de ses promenades le long du Danube. « Je n’utilise que des éléments saisonniers naturels : plantes, fleurs, graines, glands, pommes de pin, coquillages, cailloux, feuilles, etc. Je ramasse tout ce qui est disponible, dans l’environnement immédiat, là où je crée mes pièces et j’essaie toujours de faire quelque chose de nouveau, d’unique », explique-t-il. Pour lui, cette activité représente un passe-temps méditatif et relaxant, dans un environnement plaisant où il se sent heureuse.
Dezeen promotion: Finnish paint brand Teknos has released a range of paints designed to improve resident’s wellbeing by purifying indoor air.
Named Biora Air, the paints absorb and neutralise aldehyde pollutants such as formaldehydes from interior spaces.
According to Teknos, air contaminants are odourless, which makes them difficult for residents to detect before noticing health effects, such as irritation to the eyes, nose, throat and skin.
Depending on the concentration of aldehydes and the size of the space, surfaces painted with Biora Air paints can purify air for “five to 10 years”.
“Indoor air is polluted by many sources, such as the outside air, building materials and furniture,” said Teknos. “Impurities that can be found include volatile organic compounds (VOCs), small particles or harmful microbes such as mould.”
Biora Air paints have a matt finish and a purifying technology that helps reduce the amount of aldehydes in the air
Throughout Villa Lippa, a modern house located in Lohja, Finland, Biora Air paints were used on walls and ceilings to give a sophisticated matt finish while also purifying the air.
“Paints have become increasingly functional and can affect living comfort and health,” said Heli Virtanen, interior designer for Villa Lippa. “The less formaldehyde there is in indoor air, the cleaner and healthier homes or public spaces are for people to enjoy.”
“This new paint was a natural choice for Villa Lippa as it is designed for maximum wellbeing of its residents.”
Villa Lippa is surrounded by the natural Finnish landscape, which informed the design of the interior
The house’s wooden surfaces were also treated with Teknos’ Helo Solana Wax, which provides UV protection and preserves the natural tone of the timber.
“The surrounding nature of Villa Lippa is very beautiful and calm,” said Virtanen. “I wanted to bring the same feeling inside the house.”
“The natural and peaceful whole is made from durable, genuine high-quality materials and timeless design.”
Biora Air is designed to improve indoor air quality and the well-being of residents
Teknos is a coatings company based in Finland, which supplies a wide range of paints and coatings to the manufacturing industry, building professionals and consumers.
To view the Biora Air paint collection, visit Teknos’ website.
Dezeen Showroom: designed by German ceramics brand Villeroy & Boch, the TwistFlush toilet creates a vortex-like stream of water that cleans the toilet bowl without splashing or excessive noise.
According to Villeroy & Boch, TwistFlush‘s powerful flush means water is used efficiently and household water consumption is reduced.
The TwistFlush toilet is wall-mounted
“The toilet only needs four-and-a-half litres for a large flush and a mere three litres for a small one,” said Villeroy & Boch. “This way, a four-person family can save up to 19,700 litres of water a year.”
The toilet has a rimless bowl and is finished in the brand’s CeramicPlus and AntiBac surfacing, making it easy for users to clean.
According Villeroy & Boch, the toilet saves water with every flush
“TwistFlush thoroughly flushes the entire inner pan and the smartly designed bowl, with its steep and super smooth walls, makes it difficult for dirt to stick,” said the brand.
The TwistFlush toilet is wall-mounted with no visible screws, giving it a streamlined aesthetic.
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.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
I’ve seen a lot of crazy and inconvenient space-saving solutions in residential buildings in New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo. So I’m amazed I’ve never seen anything like this two-way staircase until now:
The model above was realized as a full-scale art installation called DIAGINT, created by NYC-based artist Ian Stell on the banks of the Spree River in Berlin.
“Building codes dictate the strictest of formulas for the design and construction of stairways,” he writes. “Yet despite the fact that stairs are the most reliable means of egress, they are treacherous: As with their cog cousins, they bare their teeth in perpetuity.”
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I can guarantee you that if NYC landlords could bribe the right inspectors and have these installed, inconveniencing tenants while gaining extra space to profit from, these’d be in buildings all over the city.
The first legal whiskey distillery in the borough since Prohibition is an architectural triumph with a must-visit restaurant
We first stepped into Manhattan’s 28,000-square-foot Great Jones Distilling Co at 686 Broadway in Noho when it opened back in August 2021. The highly anticipated distillery, restaurant, tasting room, speakeasy, immersive art experience and more had already begun to debut some of its many splendors—including a delectable straight bourbon that ranks among the best. Now, a handful of months later, Great Jones Distilling Co is in full operation and there are innumerable reasons to seek it out in person, from its eye-catching entry sculpture (a deconstructed Vendome still) to its four hospitality ventures and a set of top-notch, location-only liquids (a rye and a four-grain bourbon).
“The building is about 84 years old,” Andrew Merinoff, Great Jones Distilling Co’s project manager, tells us on our walkthrough. “It has a lot of history. It was the site where Manhattan’s first cash registers were made back in the day. Most recently, it was a discount sneaker store. The transformation has been extensive.” The project—helmed by Juan Domingo Beckmann, chief executive and founder of Proximo Spirits—began about six years ago, and included an 18-month search for the location. Throughout NYC, distilleries (and breweries for that matter) can only be developed in specific manufacturing zones. There are only a purported 122 buildings that qualify.
The extensive engineering and nuanced design astounds, whether looked at in detail or large-scale. It all begins in the lobby, which is paved with half-a-million tiles, some that curve alongside the spiral staircase which has a railing crafted from one single piece of steel. In addition to the copper sculpture (which nods to the educational aspects of the distillery), there’s also a host stand and gift shop where one first sees the three whiskeys and a slew of collaborations—including candles of Great Jones Distilling Co’s proprietary scent. Much like the lobby, the whiskeys themselves act as a microcosm for the entire project, whether that’s through their charming Art Deco design (based upon a curved bottled they found from a defunct Staten Island producer, but updated by Stranger and Stranger) or its 100% New York State agricultural composition.
You may wonder how a brand new distillery can sell aged whiskey. That was through advanced planning and a partnership with a sister distillery. Six years ago, Proximo Spirits started producing and aging whiskey in Upstate New York’s Black Dirt Distillery. In 2018, Proximo then bought that distillery outright. This whiskey—produced from 100% New York grain—is what’s in the bottle today. All the whiskey that’s distilled at Great Jones Distilling Co since its August opening makes its way to Black Dirt to age, as well.
Visitors at Great Jones Distilling Co can tour the state-of-the-art facility, but production attributes run through the entire venue. “You will never lose sight of the fact that you are in a manufacturing zone,” Merinoff tells us. “We are not trying to hide it; we are trying to embrace it. Every room you see in here has some element of manufacturing because it’s one of our core messages.” In fact, the explosion-proof glass chamber that houses two column stills (each 28 feet tall) and the intact 500-gallon Vendome pot still is visible from several floors.
To enter the production area, however, one witnesses what the brand calls “the world’s first vertical distillery.” As Merinoff explains, “We are in between two residential buildings. We had to build up. That led to several things. The floor that you are standing on used to be five feet higher, but because of a community board rule from the 1960s that only exists in Soho and Noho, that says you cannot distill above the second floor, we dropped the floor down.” Every time something in the layout moved on one floor, it shifted everything everywhere. According to Merinoff, there were over 6,000 floor plans.
There’s an admirable through-line to the bars on site: they only use New York State alcohol, whether that’s their own whiskeys or wines from the Finger Lakes and Long Island, as well as local ciders and beer. Directly above the lobby, visitors will find the richly decorated Tasting Room bar. Here, a menu of “classic-meets-modern cocktails” is supported by an inspired menu. Seats along the window offer a bird’s eye view of Broadway below.
Beyond the lobby, one floor down from the Tasting Room, executive chef Adam Raksin’s The Grid opened at the end of last year. This 72-seat contemporary American restaurant features elevated and reimagined classics with an emphasis on seasonal and local ingredients (drawn from New York State in particular), sometimes featuring a boozy flourish. Raksin, an alum of Le Cirque, Per Se, Benoit and more, even uses the spent grain from the distillery in his butter.
Beneath it all, visitors will be find artist Sébastien Léon‘s mesmerizing spirits-inspired immersive installation, Alchemy, and some might even uncover the speakeasy, which has a real-life history as a rum-runners tunnel. While sitting at the subterranean bar here, guests will often hear the subway rumbling nearby, lending an exhilarating atmosphere. Of course, Great Jones Distilling Co is a distillery first and foremost, and none of this would matter if the whiskey weren’t as covetable as the groundbreaking story and nostalgic design. Fortunately, every sip is worth savoring, whether at the distillery or at home.
What makes an iPhone an iPhone? Of course, only Apple can really tell, but there are a number of design cues that easily identify a phone as an iPhone, few of which remain in this concept.
We’ve seen our fair share of design concepts for future phones. Some base their ideas too closely on what is plausible, while others dare to go beyond what is possible. Concepts like these mix dreams and observations with a pinch of wishful thinking on top. Very few have actually hit the mark completely in predicting what will come to pass in a year or two, but one particular design looks both enamoring and alien that it leaves you wondering if Apple will even dare walk down this path.
To be fair, this future iPhone concept is beautiful if you take it in isolation. It is almost all screen, without the notch that has been a stubborn presence on iPhones since the iPhone X in 2017. It still shows Apple’s typical materials, at least before it added wireless charging, like a metal finish on the iPhone’s back. Flat sides are also present, though with a bit more curve rather than the hard chamfered edges of current iPhones.
Things get a bit strange from there, though. One of the biggest and most striking differences is the camera design and location. Once upon a time, Apple did arrange cameras in a single row, but that was limited to just two sensors in a corner. This concept puts three cameras smack in the middle of the iPhone’s rear, something uncharacteristic for Apple, which will undoubtedly draw parallels to the Pixel 6’s “visor” design.
Even small details have changed as well, like the circular buttons that are more reminiscent of the older iPhones. There is also a reflective strip running around the edges that seem to be made of a different material than the rest of the iPhone’s body. It’s unlikely to be plastic, which rules it out as antenna lines. The punch-hole camera is also new, but there are already rumors that Apple will actually switch to this design this year or in 2023.
If not for the iconic Apple logo, few will probably identify this as an iPhone at first glance. That’s not to say Apple will never adopt this design, just that it probably won’t within the next two or three years. That’s probably why AppleDesign christened this concept as the iPhone 16 Pro, suggesting it is probably far into the future, if it even happens at all.
Japanese-born Misaki Kawai’s colorful art brims with fluffy sculptures, emoji characters and furry creatures. Such is the case in Kawai’s “Arty Afternoon,” a bold, five-color silkscreen print on Tiepolo paper that features a peeping pink cat. Just like the artist’s other artwork, “Arty Afternoon” (in an edition of 30 prints) immerses viewers in Kawai’s whimsical and wonderful world.
Netflix series Made by Design celebrates the work of 13 architects and designers who live and work in Nigeria. The show’s co-producer Titi Ogufere picks five architects and designers featured in the TV show for Dezeen that she believes deserve greater recognition.
The documentary series, which can be watched on streaming site Netflix, provides insight into the achievements and contributions made by designers based in the West African country.
Each episode uses in-depth interviews to explore the process and work of the creatives. From CM Design Atelier architect Tosin Oshinowo to Moe+ Art Architecture director Papa Omotayo, the series is intended to shine a light on the power of design coming out of Africa, or what Ogufere refers to as “the womb of creativity”.
“Africa is the womb of creativity – this is my belief,” Ogufere told Dezeen. “So it [the series] is about sharing that with the world: for me that was important.”
The American International School Lagos Staff Housing building by MOE+ Art Architecture
Ogufere argues that the coronavirus pandemic created a shift in the way contemporary Nigerian design is created, consumed and celebrated. Thus the timing of the series was crucial.
“Covid made people stop and think and design,” she explained. “I was always so bored so I was like: ‘okay, let’s go again, let’s get these people to begin to think and get the people in the [African] continent to share their ideas.”
As an African interior designer, the Design Week Lagos founder was keen to use her position to allow the designers to tell their stories.
“It was very important that they felt comfortable enough to be able to share their story,” she said.
“I’ve been in the industry for quite a while – over 20 years,” she explained. “I know a lot of these designers that only came into the industry five years ago, and it was about getting them to be comfortable.”
Ogufere is currently working on season two of the series, which will broaden its reach and cover design from across the African continent.
Below, she chooses five designers from the current series that believes deserve wider recognition:
Image courtesy of Lani Adeoye
Lani Adeoye
“For me, Lani is a curious designer. She moved from New York back to Nigeria and she was literally going to villages to research how to preserve culture.
“We had a lot of crafts in Africa, especially in Nigeria but most of these crafts are lost now because there’s no use. For instance, when I was growing up, we had so many mat weavers. But most of these are gone because it passes on from one generation to the other and no one wants to do them anymore.
“Her furniture and lighting pieces, including the Talking Stools and Tables (pictured), celebrate West African elegance with a contemporary sensibility. I really like her organic forms.”
Image courtesy of Si.Sa
Seun Oduwole
“We have a new generation of people that are interested in identity, and Seun is someone who is taking it beyond just architecture. He is designing a very interesting museum right now in Lagos which is on the Yoruba heritage (pictured). It’s called the John Kennedy Randle Centre.
“There’s so much architecture with no soul whatsoever because people are just churning out things. But he’s been working on this project for a while and I’ve seen them work. I’ve been there a couple of times and I’ve seen the passion of seeing the research that has gone into this one project. I’m really excited to see the outcome.”
Photo is by David Timibra
Tosin Oshinowo
“Tosin is a force. She’s not really been in the industry for very long but she is well known across Nigeria for her bright, airy beach homes including Fowóralé House (pictured).
“She doesn’t take no for an answer. Tosin is: ‘give me a place to stand and I’ll take the world’. I admire what she’s doing and I know that she’s going to go places.”
Photo is by Andrew Eseibo
Papa Omotayo
“Papa is an award-winning architect. We call him ‘The Artchitect’ because he absolutely loves the arts and he’s been doing quite a bit with the likes of Yinka Shonibare.
“He also designed Falomo Under Bridge (pictured) and Rele Gallery in Lagos, which was quite important because they took an abandoned building and they turned it into a gallery.”
Image courtesy of Tola Akerele
Tola Akerele
“Tola owns Bogobiri. She is an award-winning interior designer and entrepreneur focused on contemporary commercial and residential spaces including Bogobiri House (pictured).
“She designs by drawing on African art and culture. I know they call it different things such as Afro minimalist and all that, but I think why she’s quite interesting is that she’s been able to design both traditional and contemporary African design styles.”
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