Hasta La Ideas

As much as I love spending time with my own cats, I’m honestly running out of ways to keep them entertained and prevent them from knocking down an item or two in my home, out of sheer boredom. If you’re pretty much in the same precarious situation as me and are always looking for new ways to keep your pet entertained, productive, and happy, then this collection of pet products promises to come to your rescue! We’ve put together some of the best pet products we came across in 2022, and they deserve a place in 2023 as well; From a Dyson pet grooming kit to a pet carrier that doubles as a bed – these product designs will take good care of your pet, and keep them active and content. You can take a little breather, while they wrestle around with these newfound fun products! These are the pet products you need in your home.

1. Sharing Joy

Rather aptly titled ‘Sharing Joy’, this award-winning chair comes with a side table for humans to place their books and cups of tea/coffee on, and a crawl space for cats to casually lounge in (complete with a suspended toy for them to play with).

Why is it noteworthy?

What I personally love about Sharing Joy is that it subscribes to a broader vision of what lounging is and who can ‘lounge’. Designed for humans and cats to cozy up in, the chair comes with a hollow, oblong backrest that’s perfectly sized for an adult cat (or a tiny dog) to crawl into and laze around in. Moreover, the idea of having the human and pet lounging together against each other sounds like absolute perfection. 10/10 will give you the happiness hormones.

What we like

• Sports a minimalist aesthetic that fits in most contemporary homes
• Comes with a soft design language that’s inviting to humans and cats alike

What we dislike

• No complaints!

2. Dmuse

Dmuse is a sauna-like drying chamber for cats to have a comfortable place to dry themselves after a bath.

Why is it noteworthy?

While getting cats into the bathtub for cleaning can feel like pulling your own teeth, it’s only half the battle. Then comes the water and we all know how cats deal with that. Take that in addition to drying your cat in a towel and you’ll end up with scratches and tooth marks up and down your arms. Introducing Dmuse, Designer Dot created a drying chamber that doubles as a cat tower as a solution for cats to have a more comfortable way of drying themselves.

What we like

• A collection of control options manage the device’s temperature, strength, timer, and heat fan
• Dmuse doubly operates as a cat tower for cats to rest and play even when they’re dry

What we dislike

• We’re not sure if cats would actually enter the chamber

3. Burrow

Burrow for one ousts the regular bag appearance and those sharp-edge cage aesthetics for a pleasing design with safe corners. The functional design has a convenient push-button door and comes padded with a removable mattress for the pet to cozy up in. The walls are safe and well-ventilated. Ventilation is enhanced by a mesh door that would let the little pal peek outside and breathe fresh.

Why is it noteworthy?

What really makes the Burrow pet carrier stand out for me is its detachable design. It is built in two sections: the top and bottom being separable. The sections are enclosed with loop and hook closure which makes it easy to clip and clip off. When torn separately, the base of the pet carrier doubles as a bed.

What we like

• Multipurpose design
• Comes in four versatile colors

What we dislike

• It’s still a concept!

4. The Safer Automobile Pet Crate

This dog crate is meant to be a safe space for your pet while they’re riding with you on a short or long road trip. The Safer Automobile Pet Crate doesn’t really look like an actual crate but more like an enclosed baby seat for your fur babies.

Why is it noteworthy?

It is meant to be placed behind the front passenger seat and is secured with a harness to the headrest and a seatbelt for the back part. This way, even when you’re driving fast (or as fast as you’re allowed), the crate will stay in place and your pet be safe.

What we like

• It is made from lightweight polyester and has a breathable mesh on both sides so your dog will not feel suffocated as it can still breathe and feel the breeze if your windows are down

What we dislike

• No complaints!

5. The Cottage Dog House

The Cottage dog house is a minimalist dog house made from metallic elements and eco-friendly felt coverings.

Why is it noteworthy?

Your dog deserves a corner of the home to call its own. Whether that means creating your own pillow fort around your dog’s bed or buying the latest, greatest dog house that only fits in the backyard, it’s up to you. Typically, dogs aren’t too fussy and they’ll find comfort wherever there’s a hint of it–on your lap or under the couch. The Cottage dog house from LSY and Jaeyeon Choi is a new kind of minimalist dog house that taps into comfort with a felt covering and sturdy build.

What we like

• The internal cushion is meant to provide ultimate comfort for your canine friend
• The removable roof allows for open-air or semi-enclosed sleeping

What we dislike

• The aesthetics are a bit too simple

6. Doze

Doze is a side table where you can put some of your stuff while working, like a notebook or a cup of coffee or a glass of wine to energize you or just some pieces of decoration. The space for your stuff is actually a removable tray that you can attach or remove.

Why is it noteworthy?

The important part of this furniture though is the semi-enclosed space that is made for your pet dog. Whether they just want to rest in it or play on their own while keeping a close eye on you while you work, the dog bed seems to be pretty comfortable. It has a customizable bed cover that is made from hypoallergenic memory foam so it is both comfy and also good for their joints and bones. Memory foam is known to distribute the user’s weight and remember their shape.

What we like

• The side table that is also a dog bed benefits both the pet and the owner
• Help you in your productivity and does not make you want to doze off when you see your dog comfortably napping in their bed

What we dislike

• No complaints!

7. Petpartment

Petpartment is a concept for a space for both the cat and the cat owner so you can have a “beautiful life with your beloved pets”. What makes it different from the usual cat trees is that it doesn’t just let your cat be like Obi-Wan Kenobi and have the higher ground. It’s actually meant to be decorative and functional for both of you and hide those interiors that you don’t want them to harm while they’re playing or going about their day.

Why is it noteworthy?

The architecture of this pet apartment is well thought out and actually has four different angles with different functions as well. The front view is a showcase of the material used which is red oak and stainless steel. It looks like a bookshelf but instead of filling it with books, you can fill it with a cat or two.

What we like

• Nice piece of furniture to have, even if you don’t have pets
• Works well for humans and felines

What we dislike

• Don’t know if we can trust cats to be around books

8. MyZoo

MyZoo, a cat goods company, designs modern cat furniture that caters to your cat’s every need, while not disrupting your interior design. Solar, one of their more recent designs, is a wall-mountable floating cat bed that mounts onto any vertical surface so cats rest midair in their own designated space.

Why is it noteworthy?

Shaped like the sun, Solar is a small, but sturdy floating cat bed that’s built from pinewood. In a similar fashion to their other pieces of cat furniture, MyZoo lined Solar with a slotted resting platform for safe jumping. Ideal for small spaces, Solar provides a resting spot and jumping platform for your cat and saves space in the meantime.

What we like

• Solar doesn’t take up any ground space and easily mounts to any wall where there’s room
• Easy to assemble

What we dislike

• There’s no cushioning on the bed, which would make it comfier

9. The Dyson Pet Grooming Kit

If you’re a pet parent, and you’re looking for a handy product to break down and ease up your pet’s cleaning process – then the Dyson Pet Grooming Kit is the product for you.

Why is it noteworthy?

The grooming kit is specifically tailored for dogs and cats. Both species tend to shed a lot – depending on the season and the breed. Instead of constantly vacuuming your home, and getting rid of all the shed fur, the grooming kit includes nifty accessories, which let you tackle the problem at its root (quite literally).

What we like

• Makes your pet’s after-bath ritual less noisy and jarring, hence eliminating some of the stress they often experience during these sessions
• The kit also includes an extension hose, which provides you with more than 3 feet of flexibility

What we dislike

• You cannot use the accessories without a Dyson vacuum cleaner

10. The KIVI

The KIVI is a GoPro-inspired camera that’s designed to strap directly onto a pet collar, giving you the most glorious PoV of all time. Just plug it on your dog while playing fetch or at the beach, or onto your cat while you’re at work, and you can live the good life right from their perspective.

Why is it noteworthy?

Armed with a single lens sitting in a cube-shaped form (with a built-in flashlight no less), KIVI sits on your pet’s collar, recording everything they do and see. There aren’t any details on the action camera (given that it’s a form exercise and not a professional concept), but I’d imagine that without a display (like the one on the GoPro), the KIVI has fairly long battery life.

What we like

• Designed to be collar-compatible

What we dislike

• It’s still a concept!

The post Top 10 pet products of 2022 first appeared on Yanko Design.

Some might consider Apple’s new MagSafe tech for iPhones and Apple Watches as simply catching up to the already existing wireless charging technology, but it clearly does a lot more than what its industry rivals have accomplished so far. The smart addition of magnets is no small matter, as it enabled many different forms of wireless chargers that no longer required devices to lie horizontally flat on a desk or charging bed. That kind of freedom and flexibility gave way to rather interesting designs, some minimal, some multi-functional. It also gave manufacturers a bit more leeway when it came to materials, which this new collection of MagSafe chargers takes advantage of in order to bring accessories that are not only handsome but also less harmful to the environment.

Designer: Magdalena Gembala (Oakywood)

Apple’s first-party MagSafe chargers are already extremely minimal, comprising only a small puck that magnetically latches on to an iPhone or Apple Watch. While that did offer more flexibility in how to use it, the designs were not entirely elegant. Fortunately, it’s also possible to actually use those official chargers in ways Apple doesn’t, like putting them inside bases and holders that add a little more functionality and style to the charger.

This Oakywood MagSafe collection does exactly that, utilizing the Apple MagSafe chargers to provide the actual charging function of these beautifully designed products. What they offer, instead, are solid and multi-functional bases that not only keep your iPhone or Apple Watch in place but also add some life to your desk. With a mix of wood and matte aluminum materials, these stands and mounts look handsome on any motif you might have going for your desk, providing eye-catching ornaments without being distracting.

These MagSafe accessories are not as trivial as they might seem. One actually mounts onto an edge of a shelf, preferably one on or near your desk, while another sticks to a wall. In all cases, the MagSafe charger they hold can be removed and used as normal, just in case you prefer not to see the device’s screen but still want the beautiful presence of these wood and metal ornaments.

This Oakywood collection isn’t sustainable just because of the materials used, though that definitely plays an important role. None of these accessories actually come with an Apple MagSafe charger, so you can and will have to use what you already have anyway. Not only does this mean that the stands and mounts themselves don’t have any non-sustainable components, it also helps prevent more e-waste in the long run. It’s definitely a win-win situation when you get not only a multi-functional MagSafe charging stand but also beautiful accessories that, at the very least, don’t contribute to the death of the planet by their mere existence.

The post This beautiful MagSafe collection offers a sustainable way to top up your devices first appeared on Yanko Design.

Architecture practice Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios has created a series of crescent-shaped student housing blocks with a CLT structure for King’s College at the University of Cambridge.

Called Stephen Taylor Court, the blocks contain 84 homes for King’s College’s graduate students and fellows that were designed to Passivhaus standards and to have as low a carbon impact as possible.

“Due to the considered material choice, prioritising low-embodied carbon materials, reuse of existing materials, local sourcing and targeting recycled content, and accounting for carbon sequestered in the cross-laminated timber, the project has negative embodied carbon on completion as more carbon has been sequestered in its production than emitted,” Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios partner Hugo Marrack told Dezeen.

The architecture practice used its own carbon tool named FCBS Carbon at early design stages to help estimate and limit the whole-life carbon emissions of the scheme.

FCBS Carbon is a spreadsheet that is free to use by other architects and considers all the CO2 produced by a building, including the building material, construction and demolition.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios used Stephen Taylor Court as a “test case” for its tool and calculated its net carbon performance – both operational and embodied – to be less than zero for the first 10 to 15 years of the project’s life.

According to Marrack, the carbon calculations for the project did not consider furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) or mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP).

Located within a conservation area in Cambridge, the apartments have a cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure clad in water-struck gault bricks that are similar in appearance to traditional Cambridge bricks.

The CLT structure was chosen for its lightweight property, airtightness of the structural envelope and the material’s low embodied carbon.

“The lightweight CLT structure of the buildings reduces foundation loads, allowing the use of a thin reinforced concrete raft foundation ‘floating’ on rigid insulation,” explained Smith and Wallwork structural engineer Tristan Wallwork.

“This not only reduces the amount of concrete used in the substructure but also provides a perfect Passivhaus foundation solution.”

“Detailing of any inherent thermal bridges, such as facade restraint ties, is also drastically simplified due to the robust and solid CLT structural envelope – providing complete flexibility on location of any fixings required,” continued Wallwork.

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios plans to continue to work with the college in the future to help maintain net-zero carbon beyond the first 10 to 15 years after completion, by implementing renewable energy options such as photovoltaic panels.

The 4,300-square-metre scheme is located within a conservation area known for its arts and crafts houses, which influenced Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios’ design.

The housing at Stephen Taylor Court is made up of three brick crescents surrounding a garden courtyard with an adjacent red brick villa.

“The central triptych of three crescents creates an open and informal court which provides depth and breadth to views from the streetscape to the leafy context beyond,” said Hugo Marrack.

Steep-pitched roofs, dormer windows that punctuate the roofline and oriel windows on the gable ends of the apartments reference the arts and crafts buildings in the area.

“The sympathy with the arts and crafts approach is in celebrating the joy in each of these building details and the material’s properties, rather than ironing them out, as one might with a more minimal approach,” Marrack explained.

“This being said, the results aim towards a leaner, contemporary expression of its time, rather than forms of reproduction. In some respects, the outcomes are almost brutalist,” he continued.

Along with the newly built housing, Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios refurbished and extended an existing Victorian-era villa on the site to accommodate a common room, library and laundry room.

Stephen Taylor Court is the second graduate accommodation at the college to be built in recent years after the development at Cramner Road by British firm Allies and Morrison, which was also built to Passivhaus standards and was longlisted in the 2021 Dezeen Awards.

The photography is by James Newton.

Project credits:

Architect: Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios
Landscape architect: Robert Myers Associates
Planning consultant: Turley
Structural engineer: Smith and Wallwork
Monitoring and evaluation consultant: Max Fordham
Quantity surveyor: Faithful and Gould
Principal designer: Faithful and Gould
Fire engineer: The Fire Surgery
Main contractor: Gilbert Ash

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Saudi Arabia has revealed plans to build the Oxagon port and logistics hub, which would be the “world’s largest floating structure”, as part of the Neom development.

Set to be one of 10 regions within the Neom development in the northeast of Saudi Arabia, Oxagon will become a port city on the Red Sea, designed to take advantage of shipping travelling through the Suez Canal.

The city will act as a port and logistics hub for the wider Neom project – a renewable energy-powered region that forms part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan to diversify its economy and minimise reliance on oil.

Oxagon will have a distinctive octagonal shape with part of the development on land and a large section protruding into the Red Sea.

Divided from the land by a shipping canal, the Neom developers claim that the off-shore section of the city will be the “world’s largest floating structure”.

The floating city will be arranged around water-filled squares connected by small canals. It will also contain a cruise terminal and oceanographic research centre.

“Oxagon will be the catalyst for economic growth and diversity in Neom and the Kingdom, further meeting our ambitions under Vision 2030,” said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

“Oxagon will contribute to redefining the world’s approach to industrial development in the future, protecting the environment while creating jobs and growth for Neom. It will contribute to Saudi Arabia’s regional trade and commerce and support creating a new focal point for global trade flows.”

Oxagon will feature in the controversial Neom development alongside a luxury island designed by Luca Dini Design and Architecture, a ski resort designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, UNStudio, Aedas, LAVA and Bureau Proberts and a 170-kilometre-long city named The Line.

Designed by US studio Morphosis, The Line is a mirror-clad skyscraper city for nine million people that has been criticised for its sustainability and human rights impacts.

Earlier this year experts told Dezeen that the project’s sustainability and liveability claims were “naive”, while human rights organisation ALQST reported that three members of the Huwaitat tribe who are believed to have criticised displacements connected to Neom had been sentenced to death.

Following the news, Amnesty International’s Peter Frankental told Dezeen in an interview that the architecture studios designing Neom were facing a “moral dilemma” and should “think twice” about their continuing involvement in the project.

The visuals are courtesy of Neom.

The post Saudi Arabia unveils plans for octagonal floating port city in Neom appeared first on Dezeen.

Italian architecture studio Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli has completed the Brixen Public Library in South Tyrol, uniting a cluster of old civic buildings with a contemporary, angular addition.

Overlooking Brixen’s central square alongside the town’s cathedral and Bishop’s Palace, the project combines three former finance, court and prison buildings.

“This is not a library intended as a large container of books – quite the opposite,” said Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli.

“It is a project deeply rooted in its context, designed to welcome and generate human relationships and exchanges, intertwining cultures, practices and people of different ages.”

The new addition slots in between two existing buildings at the south of the site, finished in pale render and flanked by two walled courtyards.

According to Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli, its form and positioning are intended to behave “structurally like a tree”, leaning towards the existing buildings to help unite new and old.

Designed to feel like an “urban living room”, Brixen Public Library’s entrance leads into a large reception and information area, with full-height windows and a skylit void bringing in light.

“Entering the new building is like stepping into a portion of the city centre,” said the studio.

“Total continuity is guaranteed between the exteriors, enhanced by the insertion of tailored furnishing elements and the interiors of the new library, intended to perform as a true public space,” it continued.

Inside, white-plastered interiors contrast a black staircase that leads up to the first floor, where there is a wood-lined reading room.

Large openings in the new building face onto the windows of the existing structures across the skylit void, creating a dialogue and glimpses between the two.

“Each internal glimpse, in which everything has been custom-designed, is different, due to the great geometric and volumetric complexity of the building,” said Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli.

“[It is] camouflaged on the outside with clean and essential lines that blend perfectly with the pre-existing structures,” it continued.

The angular roof of the new building is expressed on the upper level with a geometric, wood-lined ceiling, with a skylight covered by a metal lattice illuminating a multipurpose events space.

As part of the project, Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli also refurbished the existing buildings.

The compartmentalised nature of these existing buildings, which house offices, archives, meeting areas and storage, has been retained to contrast the openness of the new volume.

Inside, the wooden structures of the historic buildings have been retained but finished with new plaster and paintwork, while original finishes are left exposed in other areas.

Carlana Mezzalira Pentimalli was founded in Treviso in 2010 by Michel Carlana, Luca Mezzalira and Curzio Pentimalli, all graduates of the Università Iuav di Venezia.

Previous projects by the studio include a music school in Bressanone, which features concrete walls finished with a hand-hammered pattern.

Elsewhere, French studio Bruno Gaudin Architectes built a library in France which was clad in thin, grey bricks at the entrance to Paris Nanterre University.

The photography is by Marco Cappelletti.

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