Since time immemorial, candles have been used to track time, with the burning of the wick and the disintegration of the candle being used to calculate minutes and hours. Seokoo Yeo’s ‘Candle Go’ brings back that particular feature, but in a unique format. The Candle Go is a wax-warming apparatus that uses disc-shaped candles, melting them almost like a timer. The wax melts radially, sort of like hands of a clock, while gravity allows the candle disc to rotate. The result is a candle experience that’s distinctly unique, allowing you to visually measure time passed. Yeo designed the Candle Go to help you track goals and time spent being productive (sort of like a wax-based Pomodoro timer). At the end, the disc melts away to reveal a medal that rewards you for time spent pursuing your goals.
Designer: Seokoo Yeo
What the Candle Go explores so beautifully is a new way of burning wax. Traditional candles feature a standing design, with a vertical wick that lights at the top, gradually moving downwards as the wax melts away. Historically, markings on the side of the candle would then tell how much time had passed, helping people track minutes and hours. The Candle Go doesn’t do that – instead, it mounts a flat disc of wax on an axis, quite like a vertical CD player of sorts. Rather than having a wick on fire, the Candle Go uses a warming element that melts away parts of the wax in a radial style. The melted wax creates a weight imbalance, getting the disc to rotate on its own. This clever technique uses gravity to its advantage, allowing the entire disc to melt at the end. You can easily track the time just by staring a the shape of the disc. It visually represents a pie-chart of sorts, allowing you to easily and intuitively understand ratios and fractions, therefore figuring out how much time has passed.
The melted wax gathers in a chamber at the bottom, ensuring your tabletop doesn’t get covered with melted wax (the way you’d otherwise face with regular candles). There’s no fire involved too (which could be a safety hazard), although the candle does emanate a warm light that is diffused by the natural properties of the wax.
Once you’ve exhausted your candle disc (and received the reward inside), simply load another disc to keep tracking your goals, and the amount of time dedicated towards achieving them!
The Malin has designed its work-oriented member’s club in Nashville, its first outside of New York City, with an earthy colour palette and a mix of vintage and contemporary furniture to give it a hotel-like feel.
Located in the Wedgewood Houston neighbourhood, The Malin is one of a number of creative businesses within the Nashville Warehouse Co, which claims to be the city’s “first large-scale mass-timber building”.
The mass-timber structure of the Nashville Warehouse Co building is visible throughout The Malin’s interiors
The building’s timber structure is highly visible throughout the interiors, and the pine ceilings and deep beams add to the warm, earthy palette of the various work areas.
Designed by The Malin‘s in-house team, the club encompasses 16,000 square feet of space that encompasses 48 dedicated desks, seven private offices, five meeting rooms and two libraries.
Wood varieties including light oak and dark walnut are used throughout the member’s club
All of these rooms feature rich colours and an eclectic mix of vintage and contemporary furniture, intended to feel more like a hotel than a co-working space.
“We’re in the hospitality business, so we carefully tailor each location of The Malin to fit the needs of the neighbourhood and professional community,” said The Malin founder and CEO Ciaran McGuigan. “Not only are we providing the highest level of hospitality, but we’re doing it in a refined and beautiful space that contributes to a productive workflow.”
The club offers both dedicated workspaces and casual areas for members to meet and relax
The design team decorated The Malin Wedgewood Houston with deep-toned Benjamin Moore paints, Schumacher wallpapers and glazed zellige tiles, while bespoke millwork is executed in dark walnut and white oak.
A variety of formal and casual seating areas are available for members to utilise as desired, either for individual or group work, or entertaining guests.
Sofas, communal tables and banquettes are all available for use as desired
Large communal tables accompanied by cushioned tubular metal chairs, sofas and armchairs with brightly coloured velvet upholstery, and cafe tables beside leather banquettes are among the options available.
Surfaces of limestone, travertine and multiple varieties of marble – including Giallo Siena, Irish Green, Onice Brecia and Aresbecator Oribico – complement the wood tones and colourful furniture.
Private meeting rooms are similarly designed to look more like a hotel than an office
Members also have access to an acre of outdoor community park space for hosting events, and receive discounts and perks at several neighbourhood hotspots.
“The Malin is committed to providing an environment equipped with personalised services and high-touch amenities,” said the team. “In catering to a tight knit community with a finite number of members, The Malin is able to provide tailored lifestyle management services while offering both the comforts of a home and the resources of an office.”
Computer mice have been around for decades, and despite their form making no objective sense, they remain the most basic and most common pointing device that we now use intuitively. The core design of the mouse hasn’t changed significantly since its inception, which unfortunately means they’re still one of the biggest causes of repetitive strain injury or RSI for many people. Ergonomic mice are starting to gain traction, particularly the vertically oriented designs that promise a more natural and comfortable grip for your hand. This device concept builds on that same premise, but the execution is a bit puzzling considering how it looks less like a mouse and more like a miniature clothes iron.
The rationale behind vertical mice is that the normal orientation of human hands has the palms facing inward rather than downward. With a regular mouse, users are forced to keep their hands at an unnatural angle, whether or not they’re moving the mouse at that moment. Of course, a vertical mouse would still need to provide the basic functions of a conventional mouse, which includes left and right buttons as well as a scroll wheel.
At first glance, the Ergo ergonomic mouse concept is just like any other vertical mouse now available for purchase, but examining its form and silhouette generates a slightly different image. The top plane’s wide surface tapers sharply toward the front, while the wide middle section looks rectangular when viewed from above. If not for the actual bottom of the mouse, which merges two vertical sides like the keel of a ship, the Ergo looks almost like a clothes iron, albeit one without a handle to grip.
Aside from the peculiar shape, the mouse design also raises a few other questions. The buttons on the outer or right side are clearly marked, but they don’t look like buttons you can physically click at first glance. The position of the mouse wheel on the opposite side is even more puzzling, as it will require a lot of swinging movement from the thumb that could actually put more strain on its joint. The rather wide rear might also make it harder to grasp the mouse, potentially resulting in more discomfort in the long run.
Called the Hill House, this 10,720-square-foot mammoth structure is home to art collectors Bruce Heavin and Lynda Weinman. Tucked away in Montecito, California the home is truly eye AND mind-boggling. The home is designed by Southern California-based Donalson+Partners, and it does seem to be inspired by other Hill Houses, that seem to be omnipresent in the US, and in the famous Shirley Jackson novel ‘The Haunting of Hill House’. But the inspiration and similarity only apply to the home’s size and uniqueness, not spookiness.
The home is quite intriguing to look at and is constructed from concrete. Weinman and Heaven instructed the architectural team to create something that would “explore the emotional and irrational”. With these instructions, Donaldson tried to build something that was structurally innovative, and had an almost surreal feel to it, while also maintaining a harmonious connection to the natural landscape. This led to the birth of the rather odd yet futuristic-looking Hill House.
As you look at the Hill House, it brings to mind the image of a warped doughnut with a sunken courtyard nestled in the center, and the rooms positioned around it in two levels. Donaldson wanted to focus on the site’s topography as much as the architectural object of the home. The home’s lower level is set against the ground, while the upper level is topped with a walkable and fully planted roof. As visitors enter the home, they are often surprised by how comfortable it is. They are welcomed by a massive living and dining room, and which leads to a desert-inspired central garden, while myriad twists and turns guide them into the various nooks and crannies of the home.
The interiors of the Hill House are quite luxurious and comfortable. Some of the amenities in the home are a movie theater, a large garage with an automobile turntable, a bar, and a rec room. The basement of the home features a working fireplace, and it is marked by a swirl-like structure, which guests can enter, creating a truly surreal experience, unlike anything you experience in most homes these days.
Belgian studio WE-S Architecten has created a nursery in the town of Aartselaar that takes the form of a nine-sided pavilion, intended to blend in with the surrounding park.
The compact building in Belgium provides four classrooms, a dining area and staff spaces, which are organised radially around a skylit hall to allow them to “visually flow into each other”.
Sheltered by the overhanging roof, the classrooms look inwards onto the central hall through full-height glazing and outwards to the park through large windows on the exterior.
WE-S Architecten has created a nursery in the town of Aartselaar
“The nursery school is tailored to the children in terms of both scale and layout: no strictly separated classrooms, but spaces that visually flow into each other,” said WE-S Architecten partner Edward Weysen.
“The school building is located in a residential, suburban area, and therefore tries to create an introverted and secure atmosphere in order to limit the nuisance to the adjacent homes,” he told Dezeen.
“That is why the classrooms were oriented around a communal hall that is illuminated from above.”
It takes the form of a nine-sided, pavilion-like structure
The classrooms themselves have been organised back-to-back, allowing them to be combined into larger spaces when necessary as well as being easily observed from the staff spaces.
Between the classrooms are shared facilities such as toilets, storage, a kitchen and a dining area, provided with more privacy by wood plank cladding on the building’s exterior.
It is intended to blend in with the surrounding park
At the front of the building, two segments have been removed from the nine-sided form to create an external, covered entrance and play area, with a tree that protrudes through a roof cut-out.
The shallow-pitched roof that tops the nursery features a large overhang to provide sheltered areas around its perimeter, with several sides featuring concrete benches.
The wooden beams on the underside of the roof have been left exposed, and in each corner, the structure is supported by large, curving wooden columns.
Inside, the structure’s radial beams have also been left visible in the central hall, with the classrooms finished with timber panelling and floors and metal window frames in pale green to further blend in with the park.
A skylit hall sits at the heart of the nursery
“The roof extends 1.75 metres so that the bench remains sheltered and covered. In addition, this accentuates the roof shield as a load-bearing tent structure,” Weysen told Dezeen.
“The building therefore seems to blend effortlessly into the wooded environment and can be read as a modest garden pavilion rather than an institutional building,” he concluded.
Dubbed the first major design trend of 2024, our latest lookbook collects cosy, lived-in interiors that embody the “bookshelf wealth” aesthetic movement taking over social media.
While using books for interior decoration is not a new idea, it has been brought back into focus by a now-viral TikTok video posted in December by San Diego-based interior designer Kailee Blalock.
In the video, Blalock explains that “bookshelf wealth” is not just about creating perfect book displays, but instead about capturing the warmth and homeliness of book collections to curate “a whole home vibe”.
“Bookshelf wealth”, which the Financial Times called this year’s “first major design trend”, suggests pairing bookshelves with mismatched interior patterns, cosy seating areas and layered, loosely organised art pieces to create a tastefully eclectic space for reading.
Despite their contemporary qualities, the projects in this list capture the intimate atmosphere of “bookshelf wealth”, from colourful bookshelves that span an entire room to subtle reading nooks for deeply personal collections.
A wooden bookcase with sienna-coloured backing panels complements this warm New York apartment renovation by GRT Architects.
The bookcase spans the length of the living room behind patterned, textural furniture pieces and is lined with multicoloured books stacked in different directions against small sculptural objects.
Aiming to preserve the home’s “turn-of-the-century disposition”, GRT Architects concealed a TV behind a light pink panel at the centre of bookcase.
London-based Child Studio designed this entertainer’s home in Mayfair with mid-century modern furniture and deep-toned material finishes, aiming to enhance the art deco atmosphere by carving bookshelves into dark mahogany walls.
“We worked closely with the client to create a space that reflected his personality and interests, encompassing art, design, literature and travel,” Child Studio founders Che Huang and Alexy Kos told Dezeen.
“This approach made us think of Saint Laurent’s salon – an eclectic interior where design objects and art pieces from different eras and parts of the world are assembled together, forming a highly personal environment.”
The Santa Monica Proper Hotel by American designer Kelly Wearstler includes reading niches with artwork and furniture by local artists and artisans.
A brimming bookcase flanks low-lying lounges and walls covered by misaligned artwork, with Wearstler explaining that the idea was to connect the original building’s Spanish colonial revival style with the new contemporary building.
“Everything’s connected to somebody that is local in the city,” Wearstler explained. “We’re so lucky to be in Los Angeles, the talent pool here is extraordinary.”
The bespoke unit was finished with brass bookstands and embedded LED lighting to complement the tactile and neutral interior palette, capturing the luxurious undertones of “bookshelf wealth”.
A dedicated reading nook punctures this bedroom suite for a compact home in the Pacific Northwest by US studio SHED.
Wrapping the bright white walls, stacked books and mismatched objects line dark metal shelf extrusions that are interrupted by a square window looking out to the surrounding landscape.
Remodelled by John Wardle Architects for the founder’s own Melbourne home, Kew Residence leans into the informal and cocooning atmosphere of “bookshelf wealth” in its wood-clad first-floor study.
Built-in shelves made from Victorian Ash are the focal point of the room and have been densely filled with a collection of ceramic art and books. Next to the shelves, an inset window seat and a slim suspended desk were added, creating a practical and uniform interior.
As part of renovation works for a 1950s Los Angeles home, California studio Lovers Unite converted an unused balcony into a long, teal-upholstered window seat below a floating bookshelf.
Paired with contrasting embroidered cushions and vintage decor pieces, the book display adds colour, depth and a feeling of occupation to enliven the timber-clad interiors.
Australian studio BE Architecture renovated this Victorian home to highlight the client’s vast art collection, while also rejecting “stark minimalism” and embracing the interior’s existing heritage features.
Large-format books form a centrepiece in the home’s lounge area under transparent coffee table cubes, adding to the home’s eclectic, richly textured and academic character.
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring homes with indoor slides, colourful home renovations and built around ruins.
A 12th-century monastery in Italy‘s Umbria region has become a boutique hotel in the hands of Florence studio Archiloop, which aimed to retain the site’s “rustic simplicity” during its renovation.
Vocabolo Moscatelli sits in the countryside near the hamlet of Calzolaro, close to the Tuscan border, on a remote estate surrounded by woodland.
Vocabolo Moscatelli occupies a converted monastery in Umbria
The property was discovered by chef concierge Frederik Kubierschky and his partner Catharina Lütjens, who set about restoring the various 800-year-old stone buildings with the help of architect Jacopo Venerosi Pesciolini of Archiloop.
Aiming to retain the historic charm and as much of the original features as possible, the team kept the original wooden floors, exposed terracotta brickwork and ceiling beams, alongside brass, iron and stone details.
The original brick and stone buildings were restored by Archiloop
They worked with local craftspeople on the restoration of these elements and incorporated new pieces by artists and designers from across the region, too.
“Vocabolo Moscatelli brings together the stone mason, blacksmith and woodworker with the artisan makers: ceramicists, tile makers and painters, creating a boutique style canvas that plays homage to the past while bringing in the design references of the now,” said the hotel team.
Timber ceiling beams are left exposed throughout the hotel
New additions to the site include a travertine swimming pool, coloured to match the surrounding woodland and Mediterranean landscaping by Fabiano Crociani.
“Threaded smoothly together, the effect is a template of rustic simplicity with heart,” the team said.
Each of the property’s 12 guest suites is unique and includes a custom bed frame
Vocabolo Moscatelli offers 12 spacious guest suites: eight in the main building and four more dotted around the landscaped grounds, all with a “monastic chic” style.
Each includes a unique colour palette and collection of design pieces, like a sculptural black two-person bathtub on one of the terraces and the various handmade beds.
The Bridal Suite includes a round canopy bed and a private garden, while the Spa Suite has its own sauna and jacuzzi.
Some of the suites have sculptural al fresco bathtubs
Furniture and products were sourced from Italian brands, such as outdoor furniture by Paola Lenti and lighting from Davide Groppi and Flos.
Handmade glazed tiles by local Umbrian company Cotto Etrusco adorn the bathrooms, contrasting the rough stonework of the building’s thick walls.
New additions to the estate include a travertine swimming pool
Many historic buildings across Umbria have been converted into guest accommodations, from remote holiday homes like the Torre di Moravola watchtower to sprawling rural estates like Castello di Reschio.
Several monasteries in Italy have also found new life as hotels, including the Monastero Arx Vivendi near Lake Garda.
With a modular design that lets you add and replace inserts under your heel and metatarsal area, the EcoDasher is perhaps the only shoe insert to let you choose exactly how much support or shock absorption you want in your footwear. Perfect for pretty much any occasion, these replaceable pads let you customize your shoes to suit your exact needs, whether it’s for all-day comfort, foot-alignment, pain relief, or even endurance and athletic performance. The same insole transforms to help assist your foot and posture, working remarkably well for work, sports, leisure, and everything in between, giving your shoes the practical edge they need. The EcoDasher shoe insole makes fashion functional again!
Most insoles just provide lift or arch support, but the EcoDasher isn’t most insoles. The distinct difference in the EcoDasher’s design lies in the two removable pads at the base, and the multiple pad options that come with each insole. Each pad bestows different properties on your insole. Think of your insole as a camera, and the pads as different lenses. Some lenses give you telephoto capabilities, others let you go ultra-wide, and some allow you to go up-close in macro… the pads work the same way, giving your foot just the right amount of support it needs throughout the day and through different activities.
The EcoDasher’s design takes inspiration from the shape of a horse saddle, with curves that support the arches of your foot. The insole’s flexible design provides the right balance between adaptability as well as foot support, letting you get the most out of the shoes you wear. The pads on the bottom help provide the right amount of cushioning depending on your activities. Harder pads give support, softer ones give long-lasting comfort, and special shock-absorbing pads help provide that bounce while running, training, or engaging in any activity.
The two pads sit at strategic positions, right underneath the impact points of your feet. The heel pad, as its name rightfully suggests, sits directly underneath the heel, while the other metatarsal pad sits underneath the transverse arch, or the area between your toe and heel that comes in contact with the floor when you stand on tip-toes. The metatarsal pad comes in 3 varieties – an Oceanfoam pad that offers mild support, the Rebound pad for moderate support, and a FIT pad for extra support. Meanwhile, the heel pad boasts 4 options, Oceanfoam, Rebound, FIT, and an additional Comfort MAX that’s perfect for pain relief.
Together, the 7 pads offer up to 20 unique combinations that you can experiment with to find the ones that suit your requirements the best. Depending on your foot shape, body type (height and weight), fitness, and the activity you engage in, you can choose which pads serve your needs the best (or even use the EcoDasher without pads if all you want is a foot-hugging insole). The interchangeable pads help overcome a variety of scenarios, from daily wear to athletics, or from pain-relief to just simple foot-alignment (for people with flat feet or bad posture). With time, you’ll be able to understand exactly what your feet need throughout the day, helping you adjust your insole accordingly for unmatched comfort.
The EcoDasher still manages to have one more trick up its sleeve, and the clue sits right in its name. While most insoles are made from virgin synthetic memory foam, the EcoDasher is made from a combination of algae-based materials and recycled plastic waste. The insole itself is designed using broken-down plastic waste, and is made to be entirely recyclable, ensuring it never ends up in a landfill or the ocean. Meanwhile, the Oceanfoam pad inserts are derived from algae, and are designed to degrade into natural materials when discarded. Overall, the entire insole is made from 80% recycled materials, and comprises 47% biodegradable elements, while the remaining 53% can be recycled into other plastic products. Unlike other natural materials like cork, the EcoDasher insole is also designed to be flexible without cracking/breaking, and is also breathable and innately anti-bacterial.
Each EcoDasher offers 5 different colors to choose from and is available across 10 different sizes (which can further be trimmed to fit perfectly into your shoes. The pair of insoles ship with 14 pads in total (7 per foot), along with a nifty guide that helps you understand which pads to use based on need. The entire kit comes packaged in a plastic-free FSC-certified paper box which can be recycled after you receive your EcoDashers. The EcoDasher ships globally, starting at a Kickstarter-special discounted price of $39.
For casual or even regular beer drinkers, how or where you drink it is not that much of a priority. The important thing is to have a preferably ice cold glass or can and just drink it straight or casually while talking to friends or just relaxing at the end of the day. But for beer connoisseurs, there are a lot of factors that may go into their enjoyment of their drink of choice, particularly the glass that holds this amber liquid.
For draft beer drinkers, the Kuro Label variant of Sapporo is a particular favorite. And Japanese design firm Nendo has come up with the perfect glass to savor and maximize the flavor and aroma of this variant and probably other draft beers that you will drink out of it. The Perfect 3Way Glass is an assymetrical creation that has three different mouthfeels that you can use and get three different experiences with the beer.
The front and back part of the glass is the “straight side” which is where you should drink the beer first. The beer should trickle down to the center of your tongue and straight to the back of your mouth, giving you the initial crisp finish of your drink. Then you can move over to the left side that has a curvaceous finish to fill your mouth with a “mellow, rich aroma and bouquet of liquid” since you’re drinking from a wider rim. Lastly, go over and drink from the bulbous shape on the right side which hits the middle of your tongue and control the flow of the beer.
If you’re like me, you probably will not remember to drink the beer in that order and will most likely just gulp it down any which way I want. But the asymmetrical design of the glass will definitely catch my interest even if I may not be able to distinguish the different flavors and aromas on each side, being the casual beer drinker that I am.
Projectors are becoming a popular alternative to extra large screens like TVs, mostly at home but sometimes even outdoors. Product design trends have started to move away from bulky boxes to more compact forms, but most of them are still restricted by a few design considerations. Even projectors that are supposedly designed for portability often come with clunky and sometimes unattractive stands, or worse, require setting up on tripods just to get the perfect angle. This concept design tries to solve that problem in a rather creative way, offering a highly compact and portable projector that can be propped up and angled conveniently, all without using a tripod or even a stand.
Thanks to progress in technology and manufacturing, it’s now possible to cram much of the electronics that powered large, hulking projectors into something the size of a small box or even a cylinder. But despite the smaller designs, or probably because of their more cramped designs, these portable projectors often rely on an external mechanism like a tripod or stand to prop them up at the desired angle. Not only does this ruin the aesthetics of the otherwise beautiful product, it also makes it cumbersome to bring the projector along wherever you go.
The Slim.VU concept tries to offer the ultimate on-the-go entertainment experience by encapsulating all the needed parts and design in a single, compact, and portable package. A projector with a built-in battery is not exactly new, but one that comes with 4G connectivity is still unheard of. That enables the projector to function not only without an external power source but even without a Wi-Fi connection, allowing it to access streaming sources without having to use up your phone’s cellular data.
The more interesting aspect of the projector’s design, however, is the built-in stand that looks nothing like a stand. The removable “cap” of this tumbler-like projector functions as this stand, holding the projector in its place magnetically. The curved shape of this stand lets you rotate the cylindrical projector and angle it properly. This way, you don’t need any other accessory to enjoy a video anytime you want, anywhere you go.
The Slim.VU projector concept contains everything you need, freeing you from concerns about power, connectivity, and stability. Of course, actually implementing such a projector is a different matter entirely, and it might need to make a few compromises in exchange for its compact form. Audio and video quality might actually take a hit just to cram this much technology inside a canister shape, making the portable projector less ideal for outdoor use, or even indoor when there’s too much ambient light.
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