En 2012, les architectes hollandais de chez Zecc ont relevé le défi de réaménager une remise à calèches datant de 1760 en maison spacieuse. La « Coachhouse Breukelen » se situe dans la province Utrecht en Hollande. Un projet original aux poutres et escaliers boisés ainsi qu’une dominante de blanc est à découvrir.
Less than three years ago we watched the budding Dutch designer Dirk Vander Kooij explain his graduation project to a packed house at Cape Town’s Design Indaba conference. The Design Academy Eindhoven alumnus humbly presented…
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Focus sur le photographe Bruxelles5 qui nous rappelle avec diverses photographies à quel point la culture de la tulipe en Hollande permet d’obtenir des champs colorés d’une beauté incroyable. Une superbe série et compilation naturellement intitulée « Tulip Fields » à découvrir en images dans la suite de l’article.
Advertorial content: After the success of last year’s inaugural bottle redesign challenge—which saw over 30,000 entries from more than 140 countries—Heineken today launches its second annual global bottle design competition. This year, in celebration of their 140th anniversary, the iconic beer company opens the doors to its rich history of…
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Beautifully minimal wool felt and leather iPad and iPhone sleeves from Dutch design company Mujjo
Made in Amsterdam, The Originals Collection from Mujjo celebrates the understated but energetic nature of signature Dutch design, which Mujjo founder Remy Nagelmaeker describes as “contemporary and simple, but elegant and often innovative in shape or material.” Making beautifully refined sleeves for your smartphone, laptop and iPad in wool and leather, Mujjo charmed us with an overall aesthetic supported by impeccable hand-craftsmanship and attention to detail.
Nagelmaeker’s favorite piece, the iPad Sleeve‘s wool felt body is both treated to repel water and resist peeling with a sustainable material that’s both strong and still soft to the touch. Additionally the vegetable-tanned leather is naturally water- and wear-resistant. Made with just the two materials, the simple sleeve benefits from basic form for a functional design. The sleeve is opened like an envelope to reveal the main compartment that holds your iPad securely while the additional, smaller pocket is free to store anything from a book to cords.
Taking the minimalist mantra to its rawest form is the iPhone Sleeve. The lightweight sleeve, which also comes in white, is constructed entirely of top-grain leather that’s hand-stitched and hand-dyed with environmentally friendly pigments.
The Original Collection from Mujjo is available now directly from Mujjo online with the iPhone Sleeve and iPad Sleeve selling for €35 and €50, respectively. Also keep an eye out for the limited run 15″ Macbook Pro Retina Sleeve set to drop 28 August 2012. For more information on the collection visit Mujjo online and for additional looks at the iPad and iPhone sleeves see the slideshow.
Images by Graham Hiemstra
Handy sleeves make perfect toaster sandwiches without the mess
A game-changing food invention that just about rivals sliced bread, ToastaBags provides a mess-free method for making a sandwich toasted to perfection. This child-friendly product is ideal for those with an affinity for sandwiches that ooze with melted cheese—a liking shared by ToastaBags’ maker, Boska Holland, which has been “exploring cheese” since 1896.
Preparing a toasty is as simple as dropping a sandwich stacked with your favorite ingredients into a ToastaBag and placing the bag in the toaster. The fine mesh allows for crispness while catching any drips. When it’s done, you can easily remove the bag without burning your fingers and clean up is a cinch too. You can throw them in the dishwasher or wash by hand with warm water about 50 times before they’re no longer reusable. For those truly committed to toasty sandwiches, the bags are worlds more convenient than having to house an extra appliance.
Get your Boska Holland’s ToastaBags from the Cheese Fondue Shop for around $8, available in a packet of three.
A young minimalist takes on the challenge of designing for everyday life
A kind of Shaker simplicity marks the work of Leon Ransmeier, a beauty that results when an object is exactly what it’s meant to be and nothing more. A humidifier is a pristine bucket filled with water; an extension cord wraps itself neatly around a flat white spool.
Some designs are, in fact, so pure of purpose that they can stump those of us surrounded by less thoughtful objects. When we asked if it was possible to get money out of bubble piggy bank—little more than a clear globe with a slot in it—without smashing the whole thing to bits, Ransmeier reminded us, “They were designed to save money, not spend it.”
In spite of being a fresh 31-years-old, Ransmeier has already had a long time to consider form and purpose. His father is a ceramicist, and the young Ransmeier spent his childhood in a studio watching clay morph from paste to art, while learning how to make objects on his own. Focused on furniture design, after graduating from RISD in 2001, Ransmeier moved to the Netherlands with design partner and former girlfriend Gwendolyn Floyd.
In Eindhoven he founded Ransmeier Inc., but it was only after he and Floyd moved to Rotterdam and started Ransmeier & Floyd in 2005 that they began attracting serious interest. A dishwasher rack comprised of pliable polypropylene nubs, arranged algorithmically in density to hold spoons, knives and plates, was included in the 2006 National Design Triennial at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. They created products for Droog among many others.
“I was influenced and inspired by the Dutch approach to design that emerged in the 1990s, and I still believe that this devious and conceptual approach to design is an important chapter in history,” said Ransmeier, referring to that definitively quirky, minimalist concept still on display at internationally renowned design stores like Moooi. He was lured back to NYC after a providential set of circumstances—”My visa was long expired”—and the offer of the creative directorship of design firm DBA, a firm he founded with partners Erik Wysocan and Patrick Sarkissian.
The term “DBA” is meant in the legal sense, as a placeholder for the greater number of hats that each member of the company wears—not only that of a designer, but that of environmentalists and civically-minded individuals. One of DBA’s current products, the 98 Pen, is a simple black roller ball made at a wind-powered facility; another, the Endless Notebook, is 100% post-consumer waste, comprised of folded booklets slipped into a slim envelope. Perhaps a compostable pen seems like a relatively small tweak—still, taking into account the many toxic, plastic ones strewn across desks all over the United States, it might make more of a difference than you’d think.
“The issue with a lot of ‘sustainable design’ is that the focus is predominantly on the sustainability of the product without a strong focus on innovation or creating timeless, beautiful objects,” Ransmeier said. Utility, beauty and sustainability aren’t mutually exclusive goals, and focusing on one goal above the others is to the detriment of them all. “Creating objects that can be immediately dated as being a part of the ‘sustainability trend’ quickly makes them obsolete and inherently unsustainable.”
In addition to designing, Ransmeier now takes time to teach—”At the moment I’m finishing up a semester at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, teaching an undergraduate industrial design class”—occasionally commuting from his NYC home to do so. “It’s important to realize that industry and the man-made environment are not separate from what people perceive as ‘nature’, but are interdependent and inherently connected,” he continued. And simply and beautifully so, if Ransmeier had his way.
The Audi Icons series, inspired by the all-new Audi A7, showcases 16 leading figures united by their dedication to innovation and design.
Voici le projet de fin d’études de Wytze van Mansum, un étudiant à l’Université de Delft en collaboration avec Cannondale. Il présente les perspectives du vélo urbain pour les femmes, en s’intéressant aux nouvelles technologies. Plus d’images et d’explications en vidéo dans la suite.
Un vélo doté d’une allure moderne grâce à de nombreuses innovations comme l’aspect du cadre, et du garde-boue arrière. De plus, les vitesses et la transmission sont entièrement cachées.
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