Swedish architecture studio Wingårdhs has completed a cluster of five suites for the Trakt Forest Hotel in Småland, raised on metal stilts to give visitors the feeling of being among the tree canopy.
Purposefully simple and minimal in order to “put nature in focus”, the cabins are part of the Trakt Hotel’s wider complex, which includes a restaurant and sauna connected by small woodland paths.
Wingårdhs sought to have as little impact on the landscape as possible, perching the hotel cabins on steel columns atop concrete plinths and constructing them from locally-grown wood that was carried onto the site.
“We wanted to keep the ground as untouched as possible and dig as little as possible, to make sure that the tree root systems – and everything else living in the area – would stay unharmed,” Gert Wingårdh, partner at Wingårdhs, told Dezeen.
Grouped in a roughly circular arrangement, each cabin is accessed via a long ramp leading directly into a living area that gently widens to frame a large window looking out at the forest.
At the opposite end, on the other side of a bathroom and storage area, the bedrooms are more private and finished in wooden panelling that has been stained a deep shade of green.
A deep-set skylight above the bed frames views of the tree canopy above, while a corner window provides further views out over the forest.
In both the bedroom and living area, two narrow windows sit behind small wooden doors that can be opened to catch glimpses of the trees.
“All openings are placed to maximise the intake of nature. The one over the bed is key to make you feel the soothing sensation of watching tall pine trees swat in the wind,” said the practice.
“That, together with an intimate and frugal inside decor in chlorophyll green, strengthens the experience of being invisible in the middle of a deep Swedish forest,” it continued.
Vertical planks of roughly-cut pine cover the exterior of the cabins, creating a visual connection with the narrow trunks of the surrounding trees.
“Altogether we tried to make as gentle footprints as possible – both environmental and actual ones – to keep the area as it was the first time we saw it,” said the practice.
Wingårdhs was founded by Gert Wingårdh and has offices in Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg.
The photos are by Linus Englund unless stated otherwise.
Project credits:
Client: Mattias and Sandra Sälleteg, Trakt Forest Hotel Architect: Wingårdhs Lead architects: Gert Wingårdh and Sara Helder Team: Traian Cimpeanu, Peter Öhman, Martina Wahlgren
Pantone describes Viva Magenta as “a brave and fearless red shade that vibrates with vim and vigour” and reflects current attitudes towards experimentation and fearlessness.
“It’s assertive but it’s not aggressive – we refer to it as a fist in a velvet glove,” said vice president of the Pantone Institute Laurie Pressman.
Shades of bright pink magenta have been used by interior designers in the projects below to brighten up spaces in locations ranging from Copenhagen to Tokyo.
The interior of the beachside Shoreline Waikiki hotel in Hawaii has a flamboyant colour scheme, giving it a jubilant feel that matches the island’s surrounding tropical flora and fauna.
Redesigned by US studio BHDM for the “millennial-minded traveller”, the accommodation has a hot-pink carpet that stretches from the reception to the ground floor lounge and contrasts the brightly coloured yellow, teal, blue and red furniture upholstery.
Rich tones of green, raspberry and gold collide with smooth terrazzo, shiny tiles and tropical wallpaper in Atlanta bistro and restaurant Atrium.
Local architecture studio Smith Hanes Studio looked to the lines, patterns and shapes found in colourful French cafes and art deco buildings for the space, which is filled with an array of large leafy plants.
British design studio Mizzi Studio renovated this restaurant in London botanical garden Kew Gardens, creating a whimsical eatery that wouldn’t look out of place in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film.
Designed to introduce young children to new foods, the space features playful decor such as an apple-shaped seat, giant timber-weaved fungi sculptures and a magenta-coloured Ethiopian Enset tree.
At this Maggie’s Centre cancer treatment site in Sutton, England, patients can rest and convalesce in a pinky-purple-toned living area that studio Ab Rogers Design wanted to feel cheerful, yet sensitive.
“Believing in colour’s sensual and psychological power, we coloured the surrounding rooms to suit the functions and activities they host,” said Ab Rogers Design founders Ab Rogers and Ernesto Bartolini.
The rust, mustard, dusty pink, baby blue, yellow and caramel block colours and black lines in these rugs by Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola contrast the circular openings that punctuate the walls in this pared-back room.
Made from Himalayan wool and silk, the soft rugs have been used to add depth and warmth to the space.
A ribbon of magenta pink courses through the central areas of Scape, a housing block that Hackney-based studio Ab Rogers Design refurbished for students in London‘s East End.
Vibrant colour-coding knits the buildings’ internal parts together, while the bedrooms are informed by the sleeping quarters of train carriages, with space-saving furniture such as cupboards that double up as desks and seating nooks nestled in the windows.
Sandwiched between a raised expressway, a railway line and Tokyo‘s Kanda River, Toggle Hotel was designed by Tokyo-based Klein Dytham Architecture to stand out from the neighbouring infrastructure.
Inside each of the rooms, which guests are able to choose based on their colour preferences, the furniture, bedding, carpets and soft furnishings are all coloured in the same shade.
A plush pinkish-red carpet covers the floor of this model apartment, which was recreated within the Triennale di Milano as part of a permanent new installation.
Originally designed by Memphis Group founder Ettore Sottsass for a friend, Casa Lana is arranged around a wooden enclosure with built-in shelving and sofas.
Valencia-based studio Masquespacio injected splashes of its signature colour-blocking style throughout Resa San Mamés, a 1,850 square-metre building that houses 351 students in Bilbao, Spain.
In the main lobby, millennial pink paint clashes with the crimson tiles that line the walls, while soft furnishings and partitions were used to define zones elsewhere on the ground floor.
A rainbow of colours, including a bright pink that straddles fuschia and magenta, have been used to brighten up this two-storey school in Tel Aviv, which local designer Sarit Shani Hay, architect Chen Steinberg Navon and Ayelet Fisher overhauled in 2019.
Situated in Tel Aviv’s Hatikva Quarter – a neighbourhood with a high number of asylum-seekers – the school has a house-shaped reading nook and colourful paintwork, which the team hoped would help to create an inspiring learning area for the children of refugees.
The winners of the six studio categories were also announced, with all the winners receiving a Dezeen Awards trophy designed by Dutch studio Atelier NL.
Occupying a series of overlapping pavilions that step down towards Sydney Harbour, the gallery was designed to contrast the 19th-century neo-classical architecture of the existing art gallery.
There was a time during this pandemic when we had to plug in to our earphones and headphones almost the whole day due to various meetings and conferences. But now that a lot of companies and schools have gone back to in-person meetings and classes, there really isn’t a need to have devices that you can wear the whole day. Just in case you wanted to though, Yamaha has something for that purpose, provided you can afford its luxurious price tag.
The YH-5000SE is boasting that it’s a pair of headphones that you’ll be able to wear the whole day because it is lightweight and in fact, “featherlight”. It is made from magnesium and weighs in at just 11.5 ounches. It has a dual-layered headband but the weight is evenly distributed so it will not feel that heavy if you need to have it on for long periods of time.
You have a choice as to what materials you want your ear cups to be, either you want the more textured suede or the possibly fluffier sheepskin. Of course as with headphones, sound quality is the most important. If you trust Yamaha’s technology, you’ll most likely enjoy its Orthodynamic drivers and its detachable OFC cables to bring you better sound quality when it comes to mids, highs, and deep lows. Because it’s lightweight, the sound distortion is also lessened.
Design-wise, it looks like your typical Yamaha headphones with a minimalist look and monochromatic colors. It does have a futuristic look so you would look pretty cool wearing it around. Now the price tag is something that would make most people pause as the pair costs $5,000. But if you could afford it and you need something pretty lightweight, the YH-5000SE sounds like a good option.
By putting the most common tools and functions right under your fingertips, the PenPad hopes to make using the iPad’s most famous sketching/painting app much easier by eliminating the hassle of navigating the Procreate interface. Instead, almost like the way a Numpad makes accessing numbers easy, the PenPad gives you access to 22 different functions that you’re most likely to use while sketching on Procreate, from increasing and decreasing brush size, accessing the color wheel, switching between brush and eraser, or just bringing up the color wheel or eyedropper tool. The fact that it’s a compact hardware accessory means you can paint with one hand while intuitively pressing buttons with the other to make your workflow tonnes faster.
Available in Black and White variants, the PenPad connects via Bluetooth to your iPad and automatically begins working with the Procreate app right out of the box. The 22 concave buttons on the PenPad are laid out in a way that makes them easy to use, and pressing buttons allows you to actively perform tasks like see your layers, toggle the selection tool, cut, copy, paste tools, etc. The buttons work rather seamlessly, almost like a wireless keyboard would, resulting in faster workflows because your mind is focused on creating rather than navigating the UI anymore.
What PenPad really does is reduce the time it takes for your eyes to wander and your hand to follow it around Procreate’s UI. More than 90% of the Procreate screen is the drawing canvas, which means the other elements (the buttons, menus, etc.) are laid out in a way that gives the canvas the main importance. Drawing on the canvas is easy, but using other features involves shifting your focus from the canvas to locate the appropriate toolbar, drop-down menu, etc. It takes a mere second, sometimes up to 10 seconds, but all this adds up rather quickly when you’re working with large files and multiple layers. To avoid this, the PenPad just puts common functions under your fingertips. This way, your dominant hand can sketch on the screen, while your non-dominant hand rests on the PenPad, away from the touchscreen display. Once your fingers get a hang of the PenPad’s layout, it becomes even more intuitive and rapid!
The tiny wireless device comes with a format that seems rather calculator-ish. It’s relatively flat, barring a bump at the top that makes the PenPad rest on surfaces at an angle – a feature that actually helps make it more ergonomic. The accessory is still rather flat, and slides right into your backpack, tablet/laptop sleeve when you’re not using it.
The PenPad works seamlessly with iPads running iPadOS 14.4 and above, although there are a few shortcomings. For starters, it doesn’t work with any other sketching app – so you’re really limited to Procreate. It doesn’t work with Android tablets either, given that Procreate isn’t available for the OS. The buttons aren’t reprogrammable either, so you can’t quite map them to work on other software for the iPad or even the laptop. It’s strictly bound to one app for one device category. Another user also pointed out that the PenPad lacks the three most popular actions performed while digital sketching – pan, rotate, and zoom. To be able to perform them, you need to take your hand off the PenPad and pinch, tap, swipe on the iPad’s touchscreen.
That doesn’t take away from the fact that the PenPad still DOES speed up your workflow. It’s quite a must-have for most digital artists who use the software for work (or even for recreation). The PenPad comes with a 100 mAh battery built-in that gives it a 5-day battery life, but unfortunately, it charges via MicroUSB (unlike the USB-C charging on the iPad Pro), so you’ll sadly need to carry an extra cable with you wherever you go.
From Lula’s Garden—a succulent shop that supports water.org and its mission to make clean water accessible for all—comes the Deluxe Zebra Garden, a striking and striped Haworthia succulent arrangement, grown at family-owned nurseries. Each purchase of these plants provides six months of safe drinking water to someone in need.
Looks like the Apple Card has a strong, encrypted rival! Samsung is hoping to revolutionize the payments space with its Biometric Card which has a unique combination of a fingerprint sensor, Security Element (SE), and Secure Processor (SP) on a single chip. This is further backed by Samsung’s proprietary fingerprint authentication algorithm and anti-spoofing technology built right into the card, making it more secure than most others on the market.
“It is the cybersecurity industry’s first all-in-one security chip that reads biometric information through a fingerprint sensor, stores and authenticates encrypted data in a tamper-proof way, and processes data securely”, the Korean tech giant mentions.
To use the card, all you have to do is place your thumb on the sensor while a POS device reads the chip. If the card authenticates your fingerprint, the payment is confirmed. Companies like MasterCard have announced similar biometric cards that default to a PIN number if the fingerprint isn’t matched. It isn’t clear yet whether Samsung will opt for the same strategy.
Dubbed the Samsung S3B512C, the biometric card is also designed for contactless use (which means it comes with NFC and RFID capabilities) and is already being mass-produced with a public rollout hopefully next year. Your move, Tim Cook…!
The gloriously rich Intense Replenishing Serum by Dr Loretta feels luxurious upon application and for hours afterward. The scentless potion nourishes, plumps and smooths skin, leaving it feeling fresh and supple. The hydrating, dermatologist-formulated serum helps to protect skin against pollution and wild weather without feeling heavy or greasy.
A first-of-its-kind culinary experience served within a mixed-reality world
An immense, interactive art-saturated playground, Superblue Miami houses shifting floral walls, bubbling piles of massless clouds and a 3,000-LED installation that flickers to the rhythm of collected heartbeats. Running only this Miami Art Week 2022 (on now through 4 December), the immersive venue also invites guests to dine on potent little bites developed by the highly awarded chef Chintan Pandya (of Semma, Dhamaka and Adda acclaim). These delectable nibbles, however, are served while each attendee is traversing the deep realms of a surreal virtual world within an Oculus. Presented by Meta Open Arts, the perspective-shifting, mixed-reality experience is titled “Aerobanquets RMX” and it’s the groundbreaking vision of Naples, Italy-born, NYC-based artist Mattia Casalegno.
“Aerobanquets RMX” is a magnificent, carefully woven artistic world, where the art informs the food and, in turn, the food further influences the art. “We were inspired by The Futurist Cookbook. That’s where we started,” Casalegno tells us. Published in 1932, the book is a collection of surrealist recipes anchored in the idea of a utopian future, penned by Italian poet and theorist F T Marinetti. “We built the different scenes and environments found in the book, then we turned back to the menu. We thought about flavors and colors inspired by the virtual spaces we made. And then we went back and further developed shapes and colors,” Casalegno says.
Food affects feelings—this is a notion has been addressed in the story, as well. “We want to engage the feelings of our guests,” Casalegno continues. “We also address how flavors converse with color. We play with expectations. We are not giving you any idea what you are about to eat. No one should know this in advance.” The visuals shift. Realities melt away. Virtual objects appear.
Prior to putting on the Oculus, attendees are told by the on-site team how to find the lip of the ceramic vessel that their courses will be served on—this is a lesson that enables people to reach for the vessel in the virtual world with their digitally animated hands, and find it in real life with their actual fingers. The narration by chef Gail Simmons and the emotional, evocative imagery obscures the brain’s expectations of the real-life food. It’s surprising how much our other senses influence what we are about to taste.
“The most interesting part of this menu is that everything has to be bite-sized. There has to be multiple layers, multiple textures and multiple flavors in one small bite,” Pandya tells us. “As a chef, initially it was very difficult for me to think about how I could compose it all, but I think that’s the fun of it. Your creativity has to flow. You must question everything that you’ve learned.” Pandya’s cuisine, produced by Flavor Five Studio, is active, unexpected and flavorful.
Altogether, it’s a wondrous, sensorial pairing that tests the palate in ways never done before. Through all our experiences in virtual and augmented reality, nothing has tapped into the sense of taste. It’s not only memorable, but a milestone in the capabilities of the technology.
Different people try to relax in different ways. Some just need to pop in a good video and lose themselves for hours in entertainment. Others, however, need something a little more sublime. Soothing music, pleasing aromas, or even hypnotic candle lights can help flick a switch in our brains to start winding down. Each one of us has a unique preference, but those preferences can change at a moment’s notice. Most relaxation products, however, address only one or at most two use cases, limiting what you actually achieve when it comes to bathing the senses in positive stimuli. That’s why this smart lamp concept breaks down those barriers to offer a multi-sensory experience that will delight and soothe the senses to help you enter into that state of calm.
Some people shut their eyes tight when they want to block out the world, while others prefer being mesmerized by flickering lights. Some take to their favorite kind of music to chill, while others prefer the scents of essential oils. There are obviously different ways to help our bodies and mind settle down, and also different products targeting those different senses. If you ever wanted to combine all three or find yourself switching between them once in a while, you’re pretty much forced to buy all three kinds of products.
Idiya goes beyond those monosensory devices and combines all three experiences into a single, elegant solution. It’s a smart lamp that looks like a giant candle on the outside, which isn’t by accident. After all, appearances are for the eyes, so it’s critical that the product comes in a familiar and aesthetically pleasing package. The gently sloping middle surface, surrounded by an uneven wall, is designed in the semblance of the basic candle shape, while the lamp’s different and changing colors adapt to a person’s preferences and inclinations.
The device, however, is also a smart speaker that can emit sound in all 360 degrees. A mobile app will let you select your preferred soundscape or theme and even match it with the light of the candle. Last but definitely not least, There’s also an essential oil diffuser that completes the equation, creating a more powerful and entrancing experience that will definitely change the atmosphere inside your home or room.
Truth be told, Idiya is technically a mashup of three different devices, but it’s a combination that is executed in such a graceful manner that you’d be left wondering why it hasn’t been turned into an actual product just yet. Arguably, some prefer simpler, single-use products, but human desires can change so frequently that a single device that targets three of your five senses might be a more efficient and economical way to relax and find your center.
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