04.29.16

Studio Visit

Eric Trine Wants to Bring Powder-Coated Joy to the Masses

In the three years since we met Eric Trine — who, at the time, was a grad student skipping his art-school graduation to show with Sight Unseen during New York Design Week — the Long Beach, California–furniture designer has emerged as a true talent. And though his powder-coated pieces — geometric, clean, bright, and fun — have wowed us from the start, over time he’s honed his approach and philosophy, shifting from a DIY mentality to a full-fledged operation with a driving vision behind it: to make great-looking, high-quality products that are actually affordable.

More

04.27.16

Sighted

The Architectural Ceramics of Andrew Molleur

Ceramicist Andrew Molleur — who's based in upstate New York and will be participating in our shoppable ceramics bar at this year's Sight Unseen OFFSITE — makes slip-cast vessels and tableware that draw on his interests in the formal language of buildings, and in Japanese and Scandinavian design aesthetics.

More

04.26.16

At Home With

Douglas and Bec’s Beautifully Understated New Zealand Home

There are elements of Bec Dowie’s northern New Zealand home that are impossible to capture in photographs alone. One may not realize, for instance, the scope of its rural surroundings. It may be hard to detect the relative quiet in comparison to the city where the designer, her husband, and daughter previously made their home. And it most certainly may be difficult to grasp that, despite a noticeable lack of embellishment, it’s a multifaceted — and completely modifiable — space that belies its minimal appearance. To put it plainly: Its walls move.

More

04.25.16

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Get Ready to Experience Leong Leong’s Epic Infinite Sound Bath for Ford

Christopher and Dominic Leong, brothers and founding partners in the New York–based architectural office Leong Leong, have since 2009 developed a practice shaped by an understanding of architecture as a discipline in constant dialogue with other disciplines, such as art, film, and music. Their installation for this year’s edition of Sight Unseen OFFSITE is no exception: TOPO is an immersive and experiential landscape — created in partnership with ARUP and inspired by the design thinking behind the Ford Edge — that turns a flowing field of more than a thousand foam rollers into a kind of musical instrument, using acoustic actuators to pick up ambient sounds and translate them into a sonic soundscape.

More

04.23.16

Saturday Selects

Week of April 18, 2016

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week, a massive art chaser to counteract the design hangover we've had ever since Milan: new exhibitions by SU faves like Naomi Clark, Lily Stockman, Brent Wadden, Carol Bove, Kate Steciw, and more. (Plus: the amazing golden Stabile chair by Barcelonan designer Max Enrich, above, because we couldn't resist!)

More

11.04.13

The Making of

Inside Mykita’s Berlin Headquarters

Just a few blocks from the three-story factory where Mykita eyeglasses are designed, prototyped, and assembled by hand by a team of skilled workers, there’s a world-renowned contemporary art museum currently showing works inspired by Joseph Beuys’s vision of the future. There’s a new bar where fancy hipsters go to sip $15 Moscow mules, and more than a few new “luxury” condo buildings, which have begun sprouting like weeds in the area in the past five years. That’s about when Mykita moved its headquarters to their current location in the middle of Berlin’s Mitte neighborhood, which is basically the New York equivalent of setting up shop in Soho. It doesn’t actually manufacture from scratch there the metal and acrylic frames that are its signature — the parts are sent up in flat batches from South Germany — but it does just about everything else that’s required to construct and ship out between 600 and 1,000 pairs of glasses per day to the likes of Colette and Opening Ceremony. “It’s a business philosophy for Mykita that everything is under one roof,” says Lisa Thamm, head of Mykita PR, who gave us a tour of the factory this past June. “It’s actually easier that way, especially when your graphics team, your designers, everybody is really into detail.”

More

04.21.16

Sighted

Elisa Strozyk’s Ceramic Mirrors Are Simplicity at its Best

We love a crazy design experiment as much as the next guy, but lately we've been appreciating the pleasures of simplicity. There's something so nice about an understated yet surprising approach to an ordinary technique. Enter this collection of mirrors by Berlin designer Elisa Strozyk, which are accented with panels of swirly glazed ceramic. No tricks here, unless you count rotating and blowing on the clay discs to accentuate the marbling.

More

04.20.16

Fair Report

The Best of the 2016 Milan Furniture Fair, Part III

The 2016 Salone del Mobile and Fuorisalone — aka the Milan Furniture Fair — was one of our favorites yet, and we were there on the ground, running around like crazy people trying to absorb a year’s worth of new furniture in less than a week’s time. According to our iPhones, we walked about 7.5 miles a day in our quest to scout great design. Here’s the last of three posts chronicling what we found.

More

04.19.16

Giveaway

Win $2,500 Worth of Colorful Designs in Our Brand New Hue Giveaway

Give your interiors a spring color refresh! Enter our Brand New Hue giveaway by April 26, and you could win more than $2,500 worth of vibrant housewares from some of our favorite brands and stores, including Areaware, Poketo, Umbra Shift, Need Supply, Casetify, Tetra, Unison Home, and our very own Sight Unseen shop.

More

04.18.16

Fair Report

The Best of the 2016 Milan Furniture Fair, Part II

The 2016 Salone del Mobile and Fuorisalone — aka the Milan furniture fair — closes today, and we were there on the ground, running around like crazy people trying to absorb a year's worth of new furniture in less than a week's time. According to our iPhones, we walked about 7.5 miles a day in our quest to scout great design. Here's the second of three posts chronicling what we found.

More

04.16.16

Fair Report

The Best of the 2016 Milan Furniture Fair, Part I

The 2016 Salone del Mobile and Fuorisalone — aka the Milan furniture fair — closes today, and we were there on the ground, running around like crazy people trying to absorb a year's worth of new furniture in less than a week's time. According to our iPhones, we walked about 7.5 miles a day in our quest to scout great design. Here's the first of three posts chronicling what we found.

More

04.16.16

Sighted

The Best Thing We Saw in Milan Today: Day 5

The Eindhoven-based Studio Mieke Meijer has been on our radar since way back in 2010, when the very first Dutch Invertuals exhibit in Milan showed the studio's amazing Bernd and Hilla Becher–inspired Gravel Plant, an architectural unit for storage and display. But this year's Space Frames installation in Ventura Lambrate was the most show-stopping the studio has ever put on, and in fact seems like a spiritual heir to that original project.

More

04.15.16

Sighted

The Best Thing We Saw in Milan Today: Day 4

Visiting the pavilions at the Milan furniture fair is basically the exact opposite of going to the beach — there's tons of artificial lighting, way too much exertion, and not a piña colada in sight. Which is why we were tickled to get these images of Italian designer Cristina Celestino's Opalina collection for the glass furniture manufacturer Tonelli — the sheer dissonance made us laugh out loud. But the collection is pretty great on its own, photography (or excellent Photoshopping) notwithstanding. It includes a dressing table, a writing desk, a mirror, a coat stand, and a stool, all made from thick slabs of etched or painted opaline glass that give off a translucent and silky appearance.

More