Ohio Design

Environmentally friendly and beautifully sleek in style.  These items are one of a kind and show how versatile cork can really be, not only as a material but also as an elegant piece of furniture.

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Mischer Traxler augments the ordinary with his series Relumine by creating a sort of notional narrative between a series of incandescent table light fixtures and pairing them through the medium of fluorescent tubes. It’s almost a type of gene splicing of old technology, bringing new form to that which is soon to be seen as obsolescent.

Dan Koeppel explains in his recent article for Wired, “Abandoning incandescent bulbs means abandoning fire as our primary light source for the first time in human history.” L.E.D. also means that the bulb and shade relationship that has dictated lighting to such a degree from the first Edison lamp is no longer going to be the ruling form factor of lighting. Surfaces, edges even whole objects can themselves become light emitting with no fear of being burnt from the source.

The future is, as they say, bright.

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Remember as a kid when your teacher would have you make projects out of random materials found in your home? They would have you glue it altogether to come up with what you may have thought was to coolest thing since sliced bread.  Well a Singapore based studio, Formistry, took those common materials and designed lamps that really are the coolest things since sliced bread.

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The deconstructing and reassembly of his countries cultural past through the medium of furniture is exquisitely executed by Shao Fan. Shao Fan studied wood carving and porcelain at the art and craft research institute in beijing,  his series of chairs are re-appropriated pieces derived from classical ming style furniture, merged with a contemporary aesthetic of clean, geometric lines. some of which integrate heavy, black, angular shapes which in a way mimic chinese ideograms – ‘it is the fundamental harmony and equality between humanity and nature’ that are aspired here.

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The Metal Office Furniture Company founded in 1912 is celebrating its centenary this year, now named Steelcase it is one of the largest design led manufacturers of contract furniture in the world. Below is an image of one of it’s founding products, a steel waste bin named “The Victor” which was designed to solve the problem of wastepaper bins catching alight due to carelessly extinguished cigarettes. The affordable metal bin was their solution available in four finishes, including Walnut, Oak, Mahogany and olive green, it put them on the path to being where they are today, a global player in the office furniture world. 

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The observation of beauty in the everyday has long been a preoccupation of photography and photographers, in many ways the image is a physical manifestation of how they view the world. The Brooklyn based photographer John Cyr and his work are no exception to this rule and his series of photographic development trays are proof that he is an expert in the field. For those of you old enough to remember these artifacts there will be memories of fumbling in the dark, the hue of red light and smell of developer and fixer wafting through your mind right now. For those of you from the digital age, these trays would hold the developing fluid which the photographic paper would be submerged into, magically revealing the image exposed (look it up, or try it at home)

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Cargo container establishments seem to be very popular amongst the architecture world.  Many companies are taking this concept and transforming multiple containers into housing, stores, offices, and even large buildings.  The only questions are how safe it really is and if it actually saves time, energy, and money?

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Form Us With Love, or as the website playfully suggests each time you visit or refresh provides a constant rearranging of their name -Love Us With Form -  or my favorite With Us Love Form. The Swedish based design studio recently launched their Plug Lamp for Ateljé Lyktan. The product has been going the rounds on the blogs and I think it deserves the attention it’s getting, although this is a rather simple proposition in a growing field of product hybridization that is seeing the need for multiple and augmented functionality from our domestic and interior products. Whether it be the almost tiresome—and seeming never to catch on— networked refrigerator that Philips Whirlpool, LG et al role out each year ,or the more eminently practical new usb lights from Pablo (which I can’t seem to find a link for), our mobile lifestyles are demanding power to be provided from more than just our wall outlets.

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Ever thought that converting waste energy back into beautiful glowing light would be possible? Designers Mike Thompson and Gionata Gatto has proven how possible and fairly easy it can be.  With a little ingenuity and working with familiar materials these designers developed the Trap Light.

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