11.05.17

Saturday Selects

Week of October 30, 2017

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: a clever approach to holiday gifting, an accidental throwback to '80s upholstery, and two new co-working spaces — plus a shockingly hip reproductive health center — that are winning at the colorful interiors game.
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11.03.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

A Belgian Sculptor on the Perils of Minimalism

Last Thursday, the New York design gallery Demisch Danant opened “I am I,” an exhibition that presents more than 90 handcrafted lamps, vessels and objects from Jos Devriendt's 20-year career. Devriendt, 53, is known for espousing minimalism, though he stops short of defending minimalism for its own sake. It’s simple to make a minimalist object, the shaggy-haired artist explains, “but in the end it’s like so straight,” or fine-tuned to perfection, “that you don’t have an excitement about the forms.” And when that happens, he warns, it becomes boring.
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Arlo Skye x Sight Unseen suitcase
11.02.17

Sight Unseen Projects

Like Sight Unseen? You’ll Love the New Suitcase We Designed With Arlo Skye

For years, people had been asking us when Sight Unseen might start getting into products. But what would we make? Tastemakers, we may be; designers, we are not. Then, earlier this year, we were approached by Arlo Skye, a new luggage company founded by alums from Tumi and Louis Vuitton, about collaborating on a limited-edition suitcase that would help launch their new, lightweight polycarbonate line. Today, we are excited to launch our first-ever product: the Arlo Skye x Sight Unseen suitcase, a carry-on and check-in available exclusively in sage, our pick for the next big color trend.
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10.31.17

Fair Report

The 40+ Biggest Breakout Talents at Dutch Design Week 2017

When we first covered Dutch Design Week back in 2012, arts funding in the Netherlands had been slashed and the Design Academy Eindhoven had gone through a major directorial shake-up, making us worry that the halcyon days of Dutch design might be nearing an end. Five years later, though, we're happy to report that no such thing has occurred. Have a look at this year's Dutch Design Week mega-roundup to see what we mean.
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04.11.16

Sighted

A Design Legend in the Making Breaks Out On His Own

When we first heard rumblings that RO/LU — the epically talented, intellectually formidable Minneapolis-based studio that we've been covering and collaborating with since its move into furniture design five years ago — was ending, we were sad but also a little excited. After all, what would its multi-disciplinary founders get up to next? This week, we got our first glimpse into RO/LU co-founder and creative director Matt Olson's new studio, called OOIEE.
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10.31.17

Sighted

A Swedish Design Collective Turning Factory Waste Into Covetable Objects

Who knew a collection of waste — from industries spanning across southern Sweden — could come together in such a beautiful way? Using glass, sheet metal, acrylic, stone, and brick, a design collective called Malmö Upcycling Service has created a collection of household goods and decorative objects, from a circular standing mirror to a series of vases with interchangeable glass parts.
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10.30.17

Sighted

Hem, Our Go-To Destination for Accessible, Scandinavian-Inspired Design, Just Popped Up in NYC

America has a furniture problem: If you are young, aesthetically minded, and upwardly mobile but not quite rich, where do you buy your furniture? When you're looking for something with more staying power than Urban Outfitters, a greater cool factor than CB2, and less ubiquitous than West Elm, where do you turn? For the last few years, whenever we've been asked that question (which is, to be honest, all the damn time), we've answered: Have you heard of Hem?
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10.29.17

Saturday Selects

Week of October 23, 2017

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: Highlights from Design Week Mexico (including these graceful screens by Swiss designer Julie Richoz), a new direction for Pritzker Prize winner Tadao Ando, and a series of modular, millennial-friendly furniture made from metal, MDF, and — major wild card here — resin-infused buckwheat groats.
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10.27.17

Sighted

This Dutch Designer is Giving Concrete a Serious Makeover

At this point, we've seen pretty much every formerly humdrum thing in the universe get a design-forward makeover, from watering cans to luggage. But Dutch designer Iwan Pol wasn't happy to simply renovate a product category — he wanted to recast an entire architectural material. "Concrete can take any shape or form, so why not aim for a softer look and feel?" he says.
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Dutch Design Week 2017 - Hardcore Exhibition
10.25.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

At Dutch Design Week, 17 Designers Turning Everyday Materials into Sculptural Furniture

It’s Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, and we'll be publishing a round-up of our favorites first thing next week. But for the second year in a row, one of the best exhibitions on view came from the young trend-forecasting and design firm Core Studio, who last year curated the colorful exhibition Popcore. This year, the theme was HARDCORE, and the curators asked participating designers to create works exploring "a counter-digital movement."
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10.24.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

Amazing 80s Interiors, and the Furniture That Was Made for Them, Now On View at Volume

Anyone paying attention probably gets that for us, the Memphis train left the station awhile ago — we were heralding the return of Sottsass in 2007, and our interests have long since shifted. But that doesn't mean we're opposed to every attempt to bring back the '80s, not in the least. Case in point: We highly recommend seeing the current show on view at Volume Gallery in Chicago, which celebrates the '80s interiors of the Chicago architecture firm Krueck + Sexton with the launch of limited-edition reissues of three of their most iconic chair designs from that time.
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