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02.26.25

Sighted

Armando Cabral Turns the Cult-Famous USM Shelving Into a Collection Steeped In West African Symbolism

Getting creative with modular furniture can require a certain amount of inventiveness; there are only so many ways to organize a rigid set of components, as in the Swiss company USM’s signature Haller storage. So to produce something never before seen from such a precise framework — metal rods, ball-shaped connectors, and a system of wildly colorful milled steel panels — a designer really needs to think outside the, well, box. “Restraint sometimes allows you to think further in order to arrive at something unexpected,” says Armando Cabral, who has entwined the expressive elements of his West African heritage with strict Swiss production parameters in a new collaborative collection with USM.
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06.23.26

The Weekly

I Expected to Love My First 3Days of Design in Copenhagen. But I Could Never Have Anticipated What Would Make It So Great.

If you can believe it, this was my first year attending 3DaysofDesign in Copenhagen, and I went to the fair, now in its 10th year, armed with absurdly high expectations. I knew that just existing in Copenhagen in early June — using Lime bikes to cycle around, drinking natural wine, eating smørrebrød — would set a good baseline for fun. But after my experience at Salone, which I wrote about here, I felt increasingly desperate for Copenhagen to mean something. I told people I was going because, as a chronicler of design fair culture, I felt compelled to see one that had become such a word-of-mouth success. But on a personal level, it’s like I needed Copenhagen to prove to me that design fairs were still worth attending. As hesitant as I am to say this — lest everyone frantically start planning their show next year in Denmark, which is simply not the right move for everyone — Copenhagen actually exceeded my expectations.
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