Hasta La Ideas

Australian furniture studio Sabu Studio has designed the Onu Series, a pendant and floor light made from wood that has been split to create an eye-catching light source.

The Onu floor light and Onu pendant light, which have been shortlisted in the lightning design category of the 2022 Dezeen Awards, were handmade by Sabu Studio with the aim of combining traditional woodworking techniques with contemporary design.

According to Sabu Studio, the Onu Series was designed in response to “rapid urbanisation” and aims to reconnect urban interiors with the natural world. The lights come in a number of different types of wood, including oak and walnut.

“The designs aim to reveal a suggestion of the natural environment,” Sabu Studio founder Samuel Burns told Dezeen. “I believe even the act of utilising a natural material, like timber, provokes enough connotations of the natural landscape, and in turn introduces it into interior spaces.”

The splitting of the wood creates a parting in the lamps, in which the studio has placed LED lights. Sabu Studio used bent lamination and hand-shaping techniques to create the split.

“The two halves were constructed using the bent lamination technique, and then subsequently formed and shaped with the use of a router,” said the studio.

“This was used in creating the channel for the LED strip, the light diffuser, as well as the round-over.”

Thanks to hidden internal fixings housed in the timber, the Onu lights were designed so that they can be disassembled to replace the LEDs and therefore last longer. The studio made a number of prototypes to work out what mechanism to use.

“The challenge was more to do with the trial and error within the initial prototyping, to discovering what fixing and mechanism would work best,” explained Sabu Studio.

“[We made] an investigation into defining the correct design and components in order to allow for a seamless design with the ability to be completely disassembled if necessary,” the studio added.

Other products shortlisted in the category include pendants made from leftover aluminium profiles by MVRDV and Signals, a family of lights with conical mouthblown glass shades by Barber Osgerby.

The photography is Samuel Burns.

The post Sabu Studio creates handmade Onu lights from split timber appeared first on Dezeen.

Watches were originally invented to be able to tell the time whenever and wherever we are, but they have evolved to become fashion pieces and lifestyle choices over the decades. Even without considering smartwatches that can have a multitude of different faces, watches now come in a variety of designs that do more than just tell the time. In fact, there are some designs that make it harder to tell the time at a glance but are so eye-catching, attractive, or intriguing that it’s difficult to give them a pass. This minimalist watch concept design does make it a chore to guess even the hour beyond 3, 6, 9, and 12, but its play on the contrast between dark and light gives it a particular visual character that some sci-fi and pop culture fans might associate with TRON’s iconic design.

Designer: Daniel Wu

The actual inspiration for this minimalist design is the Church of Light by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Although the design has deep spiritual undertones, the contrast of light and darkness, as well as solid and space, give it an almost otherworldly atmosphere. Light shining through thin lines against a solid or dark background, however, is also a hallmark of the sci-fi franchise TRON, where glowing lines visualize how the lines on a circuit board could light up if the electricity that passes through them were visible.

To be fair, the Light watch isn’t even trying to aim for a sci-fi motif, and the rest of the timepiece implies a more classical bent. The straps are meant to be made of leather, with what seem to be metal clasps and buckles to join them together. The main body’s material is a bit harder to guess, but it would be shocking if it wasn’t metal that was painted or coated with something that would make it look like concrete to go in line with the Church of Light origin.

The face of the watch continues that concrete-like material appearance and is composed of two concentric circles that have thin gaps that let what seems to be a backlight shine through to create the desired visual effect. It’s probably going to be a drain on the battery, but that’s why this is simply a concept design. Actually, this watch would be a beautiful but impractical concept, and not just because of that battery consumption.

It’s easy enough to tell which is the hour hand and which is the minute hand by their proximity to the edge of the watch, but telling the exact time from their positions would be a bit of a challenge. There are grooves on the watch’s bezel pointing to the four cardinal directions, making it a bit easier to tell if the hands have hit those four hours. Anything in between, however, would be a guessing game instead, which actually defeats the purpose of having a watch on your wrist, no matter how beautiful it is.

The post Light is a minimalist watch concept that has a bit of 80s TRON charm first appeared on Yanko Design.

This naturesms Instagram channel shows a lot of tourist activities unsuitable for people with acrophobia. As someone in that category, I can’t imagine doing any of these things (warning, turn your speakers off):d

I think the main point of the channel is to demonstrate that China has a lot of newly-built and impressive tourist attractions. I couldn’t find any information about the channel host, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is tourism-board-backed.

If you love cooking but can never find enough time for it, or you’re completely terrified of cooking but you need to start, and don’t know where to start – then you’ve reached the right place. The first step towards having a streamlined and efficient cooking experience is to have an arsenal of functional kitchen appliances by your side. With the right kitchen tools and appliances, cooking can be a fun and effortless process. The right products can reduce your prep time in half, make the little cooking tasks much easier, and help you with tedious and complicated techniques. From a tiny modular tabletop griller that lets you cook in 7 different ways to an eco-friendly coffee capsule machine – these innovative kitchen accessories are all you need to undertake cooking and become a MasterChef in the comfort of your own home. Happy cooking!

1. The Cavdle WasteCycler

Working both as a garbage disposal system and a compost generator, the Cavdle WasteCycler isn’t the kind of device you’d hide away in the shed. Its cutting-edge design borrows from the aesthetic seen on washing machines, with a clear tinted lid that lets you see the Cavdle WasteCycler go to work at your food waste, breaking it down rapidly using aerobic decomposition.

Why is it noteworthy?

The Cavdle WasteCycler relies on 5 parameters to help turn organic substances into compost – Time, Humidity, Temperature, Dry Organics, and Oxygen. It then goes to work, creating compost without the smell, the mess, or even the sound. Operating at just under 35 decibels, the Cavdle WasteCycler grinds down your food waste while heating it up to the exact temperature needed to help good bacteria thrive while killing off the bad bacteria. At the end of the day, you’re left with a natural fertilizer that you can then use to nourish your plants while resting assured that your food waste isn’t going into a landfill where it generates methane and contributes to global warming.

What we like

• The kitchen gadget comes with a transparent-window lid that lets you see how full-empty your device is

What we dislike

• No complaints!

2. The Gaggenau flex induction cooktop

Measuring 90 centimeters, the Gaggenau flex induction cooktop has been amped with two cooking zones, which provide a bigger surface for users to place their cookware.

Why is it noteworthy?

The rectangular cooking zones also offer users more freedom and flexibility to position cooking utensils according to their preferences and convenience. You can also merge the two different zones to create one singular zone or “one seamless entity” as described by Gaggenau.

What we like

• The center of the cooktop is marked by a ventilation grid, equipped with an option of air extraction or recirculation, which completely eliminates odors before they escape the system and enter your home

What we dislike

• No complaints!

3. The Kokãir Cooking Curifier

The Kokãir Cooking Curifier is a device that you use with your desktop cookers if the room you’re cooking in doesn’t have proper ventilation. It is able to absorb the fumes when you’re cooking with oil.

Why is it noteworthy?

There is an internal fan cyclone that uses centrifugal force to collect the oil into a cup underneath for easy disposal and cleaning later on. The oil fumes go through the HEPA filter for cleaning. This will be a huge help especially when you cook a lot in your small space.

What we like

• It’s small enough that it will not crowd your desktop cooker whether you place it on the side or above the cooker

What we dislike

• It’s still a concept!

4. Float

At first glance, this product concept to help kids eat and finish their food seems to have no connection to picky eating. Float looks like regular food storage that kids can bring to school but upon closer inspection, it is a bit more interesting. It is made from sustainable materials with the body itself and the spork that comes with it made from CXP or Cellulose X-linked Polymer.

Why is it noteworthy?

The shape of the container is inspired by a ship and that’s where the helping picky eaters come in. Before starting to eat, parents are encouraged to talk to their kids about the perils of leftover food. After eating, you can then float the container in water, and depending on how much leftover food is there inside, the ship will lose its balance and sink or if they finished everything, it will float. This gives a bit of interactivity in trying to convince kids to eat all of their food.

What we like

• Adds a playful element to mealtime

What we dislike

• Not sure if this will actually convince kids to eat food that they may not always like

5. Xia’s Food Cleaner

This product concept for a fruit and vegetable cleaner helps out water in removing these harmful pesticides. While rinsing them under the faucet is the default action, sometimes you need a little extra help.

Why is it noteworthy?

This cleaner has an ultrasonic transmitter that produces hydroxy ions to help sterilize our food without needing to add any more materials in the purification process. This will supposedly remove not just the pesticides but any dirt residue that may still be there, especially if the food is pretty fresh.

What we like

• There are no chemicals or raw materials added to it
• Destroys the molecular structures of the pesticides and the oxidation also kills the bacteria without affecting the shape and structure of the food

What we dislike

• No complaints!

6. The +Base modular griller

When people think of cooking outdoors, they often presume it’s all about grills, mostly because it’s the most common type of cooking you can’t conveniently do indoors. Of course, that’s probably not the only kind of food you’d want to eat, but other styles of cooking would require other cookware and, consequently, a larger space. The +Base modular griller, however, supports almost any kind of cooking you’d want, from frying (teppanyaki), smoking, stewing, grilling, or even keeping wine warm.

Why is it noteworthy?

Made by a small family-owned Japanese factory that specializes in sheet metal fabrication, the All-in-One Grill is carefully designed to maximize the limited amount of space available, like small grooves on the grill’s frame that keep the skewers in place. The wooden base that protects tables from the grill’s hot bottom also acts as a lid when the griller has to be stowed away.

What we like

• Let’s you cook in seven different ways
• Simplifies outdoor cooking

What we dislike

• No complaints!

7. The Pod

It might still have a stigma of being a kid’s school accessory, but lunch boxes have become an adulting thing, too, especially when it means being able to eat healthily and save money. They also come in different designs, shapes, and functions, with some simply holding food while others can also keep them hot or cold for a little while.

Why is it noteworthy?

The Pod solves all these problems in a form that’s no larger than an iPad. Despite its compact size, it can hold around 1,500ml of food without spilling them. Better yet, you can put different foods in different containers, and they each keep to themselves without mixing smells, temperatures, and tastes.

What we like

• The container itself can be safely placed inside microwaves and freezers to prepare your food before you jet

What we dislike

• No complaints!

8. JIU

Chefs take great care when arranging food on plates, but those of us who cook at home might not have the same talent. Or perhaps you simply want to cut out the middle man and just eat immediately after a meal has been cooked. Whichever way you want it to go, this iron frying pan and plate in one lets you do exactly that and in a beautiful design that embodies Japanese minimalism.

Why is it noteworthy?

It might sound ridiculous at first. Why would anyone want to eat out of a frying pan in the first place? Of course, that question is valid if you only consider those large, messy, and sticky frying pans in everyone’s kitchens. JIU, however, is different. You could almost say that it’s a plate that you can cook your food on or a frying plate with a removable handle. Whatever you call it, it’s definitely a novel way to look at cooking and eating.

What we like

• Since you don’t have to transfer the food from pan to plate, you can enjoy your meal while it’s warm

What we dislike

• No complaints!

9. Coffee Balls

Swedish coffee brand CoffeeB has come up with a coffee machine that uses eco-friendly single-serve Coffee Balls. So basically it’s similar to the coffee pod machines except this one doesn’t have any plastic pods or capsules so you don’t contribute to the world’s plastic waste.

Why is it noteworthy?

You won’t feel guilty using these single-serve energy balls if you need a quick caffeine jolt and you have no patience for the slower coffee machines that you normally use.

What we like

• These coffee beans are made round by an almost invisible outer casing that is made from seaweed

What we dislike

• No complaints!

10. FOAM

Built from soft, shock-absorbing, yet sturdy EVA foam, the eponymously named FOAM portable cooler ticks all boxes. Combining the best parts of your fabric-based cooler bags and the large and clunky (yet effective) rugged coolers, FOAM is built to be light but durable, compact but all-accommodating, and leak-proof yet easy to clean.

Why is it noteworthy?

The name FOAM gives you all the information you need to know about the portable cooler. It’s made entirely from EVA foam (NOT styrofoam) that offers incredible insulation along with a lightweight yet virtually indestructible build. Apparently, you could run over the cooler with your 4X4 and it would simply bend back into shape after the onslaught. You may want to conduct those experiments WITHOUT pressurized cans of beverages inside the cooler, though.

What we like

• Keeps your contents chilled for 72 hours
• Durable and virtually indestructible

What we dislike

• No complaints!

The post Top 10 kitchen appliances to help you prepare the perfect meal every time first appeared on Yanko Design.

A sculptural rug, tapestries made from paper and more serene and surprising works for New York Textile Month

Artists, designers and curators once again converge in New York to celebrate the foundational yet ever-evolving medium of textiles in the citywide event founded by Lidewij Edelkoort: New York Textile Month. This year, public initiative Belgium is Design tapped Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano to curate The Gift to be Simple, a poetic display of textiles from nine women artists that attests to the purity of Belgium aesthetics, humanity of natural materials, sustainable innovations in the field and the necessity of textiles now and forever.

“The title actually comes from the [pacifist Christian sect] Shaker prayer or Shaker song called ‘The Gift to be Simple,’” Fimmano tells COOL HUNTING. “We wanted to do an exhibition this year which was a little bit more pared back and thinking about the essence of things, thinking about people’s shift toward making better choices and more conscious consumption. The textile designs that we’re exhibiting are also very much attuned to the fiber’s origin or the materials that they’re working with.”

The exhibit features the work of nine designers—Natalia Brilli, Emma Cogné, Design for Resilience’s Vanessa Colignon, Laure Kasiers, Charlotte Lancelot, Geneviève Levivier, Pascale Risbourg, Alexia de Ville and Céline Vahsen—a roster that unintentionally ended up being exclusively women. “Just through the selection of the objects, it happened that all nine designers were women,” Fimmano continues. They were chosen not for their gender but for how they “aligned with the philosophy of the show: simplicity, passage of time and the essence of fiber and materials.”

In other words, their works exemplify the serenity and strength of Belgium design, which the curator describes as “very pure and, of course, has a Nordic philosophy which is to design objects that have a clear function as well as a simple style of beauty. They are very much interested in elevating the materials that they work with.”

Fimmano and Edelkoort unite Belgium sensibilities with the American Shakers’ penchant for minimal style and respect for the earth. Located in a loft in SoHo, the exhibit is organized so that each object is situated in different, corresponding areas of the home. Honoring natural materials throughout, it locates an innate beauty in various textiles and the reciprocal relationship between resource and maker that can come from it.

In Cogné’s “Clareira,” Stipa Gigantea, a natural reed fiber from northeast Portugal, is woven into a raw sculptural rug that embodies the tufts and clearings of the landscape it stems from. It’s wild, natural and untamed yet still inviting, soft and elegant—characteristics drawn out by its concentric circles and open space. “It’s trying to show that the raw fiber or the essence of the materials is actually expressed in the objects themselves,” says Fimmano. “We always try to follow people who are interested in expressing the beauty of fiber, from seed and farming, right to the final product.”

Elsewhere, the prompt to return to nature is furthered and enhanced by technology in Levivier’s “Magic Lace.” Co-founder of the eco-responsible and laboratory-like studio A+ZDesign, Levivier reinterprets natural and recycled fabrics with new technological techniques that revel in the intrinsic ties between humans and nature. “Magic Lace” is an acoustic lace and digital tool, created by a laser wielded like a paintbrush on sustainable textiles: European jute, Texel wool and PLA. Despite the modern process (which requires no waste, glues or colorants), the resulting lines and patterns are surprising and organic and, at times, recall the fleeting moment where sea foam washes up to trace the lines in sand.

While Levivier applies a contemporary approach to age-old textiles, de Ville unearths the innovation within the traditional materials itself. For “Papiers tissés,” de Ville repurposes wallpaper production scraps and weaves them together to create tapestry out of paper. Tinted with natural pigments, they are quietly beautiful and subdued but also speak to the inherent futuristics of paper. Fimmano explains, “We often think that paper is a very humble, simple material but it’s also the future because it can be recycled and 3D-printed. It can be woven into textiles and in fashion, it can be washed. Paper is, in a way, a sustainable material and being reinvented. Issey Miyake, who recently passed away, actually believed paper is the future of fashion.”

“We want to remind people that for the past 20 years, especially for New Yorkers, textiles have been coming back with a vengeance and warming up our interiors with upholstery and curtains, wall-hangings and rugs,” says Fimmano. “It’s really to remind people about the importance of having textiles in our interiors for bringing a sense of warmth or craft or even just humanity, human touch and tactility.” Both in the exhibit and in spaces at large, the inviting and gentle works are sensitive to the scales of nature and the importance of cultivating a home.

Hero image by Leon Cato, courtesy of Belgium is Design