Home materials
03.12.18

Q+A

Fiberglass, Corian, Rubber, and Resin: Welcome to the Materials-Obsessed World of Wentrcek/Zebulon

Brooklyn design duo Kristen Wentrcek and Andrew Zebulon began making work together six years ago as Wintercheck Factory. And while their moniker has recently changed, their work has always derived its impact from the tension between the what and the why — the “what” being a material language that enforces approachability, and the “why” embedded in how it all comes together to elevate the mundane.
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02.14.18

Excerpt: Exhibition

In a New Exhibition in Oslo, Eva LeWitt (Yep, That’s Sol’s Daughter) Comes Into Her Own

It can be difficult to approach the work of New York artist Eva LeWitt and not immediately attempt to place it in context with the work of her father, the late, great conceptual artist Sol LeWitt. So it makes sense that LeWitt, for her new exhibition at VI, VII Gallery in Oslo, might try to escape comparison entirely by using materials in such an opaque way that they reframe your initial appraisal of the work — you first must understand what exactly it is you're looking at.
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Note Design Studio Stockholm Furniture Fair
02.08.18

Fair Report

The Coolest Booth in Stockholm Was for a Vinyl Flooring Company

While it's not exactly news that formerly uncool materials can be made to look beautiful and sophisticated, it's perhaps never been done as well or on as large a scale as it was this week at the Stockholm Furniture Fair, in a booth Note Design Studio created for the French flooring company Tarkett. Called the Lookout, the booth was made from a mix of wood, textiles, linoleum and a vinyl flooring material called iQ Megalit; the trick was in employing Note's frequent use of geometry and a tight, tonal color palette of rust, coral, apricot, moss green, and mint.
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Up and coming Swiss designer Dimitri Bähler
01.18.18

Up and Coming

This Swiss Designer Blends the Rational With the Emotional to Create Some of the Most Beautiful Objects We’ve Seen

"When I started at ECAL at age 18, I actually didn’t know much about design," admits Dimitri Bähler. "As a kid, I was more interested in music, fashion, and illustration, along with biology and chemistry. In fact, I've always combined those two poles of interests: the rational and the emotional." That seems as good a way as any to describe Bähler, a young Swiss designer whose work has always seemed the result of both meticulous planning and wild experimentation. In many of his pieces, a relatively strict basic form is married to a more complex and renegade surface treatment.
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01.03.18

Excerpt: Exhibition

This Up-And-Coming Italian Designer is A Master of Materials

Looking like glossy collages left too long in the sun, Strata — a collection of glass plates and lamps by Venetian designer Lucia Massari for Swing Design Gallery — are vibrant, delicate, and weirdly fun. Massari fuses differently colored flat sheets of glass in an oven, and the results teeter between two and three dimensions. Sticking with a few neutrals and a pop of color or two — yellows, violets, and blues — the casual overlapping of smooth ovals, chunky grids, and basic rectangles create unexpected, but harmonious, geometric textures.
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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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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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10.13.17

Fair Report

Albers-Inspired Tableware in Glass and Acrylic, On View in New York

If you happened to have stopped by Canal Street Market during New York Design Week last spring, you might have noticed a series of objects and furniture pieces united in their fascination with materiality: low tables made from planes of marble slotted into translucent acrylic tops, copper mirrors backed by slices of aerated concrete, and curved side tables made from various colors of stone. These objects were the first inkling of a full collection that's debuting next week at Matter by Objects of Common Interest.
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09.21.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

London’s Coolest Designers Are Creating Recycled Furniture for the Ace Hotel

Ready Made Go, a London Design Fair exhibition now in its third year, has always walked a fine line between the conceptual and the commercial. Curated by Laura Houseley of Modern Design Review, the brief has always been for designers to devise an object, sculpture, or piece of furniture that might actually be used by the exhibition's host — the Ace Hotel in London. This year, the focus is on sustainability, and the new pieces are some of our favorites yet.
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09.05.17

Up and Coming

A Debut Collection Influenced By Poetry, Philosophy, and “Total Garbage”

We've always been curious about solo designers who choose to use a studio name, but we got as good a reason as any recently by Brecht Gander, the designer behind a brand-new, Queens-based studio called Birnam Wood, whose first collection we're debuting here today. A philosophy major and the son of two poets, Gander's studio name is a reference to Macbeth. But its lack of specificity also acknowledges the people who work alongside Gander in his shop — as he says, "I write the songs, but it takes a group to play the music."
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Exhibit Columbus Washington Street Installations
09.01.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

See How 5 Design Galleries Are Transforming This Tiny Midwestern City

The seed for Exhibit Columbus began back in 2014, when designer Jonathan Nesci created an installation of reflecting tables, called 100 Variations, in the sunken courtyard of Columbus's First Christian Church, built by Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen in 1942. "It was essentially to show proof of concept that a designer could make an installation in dialogue with the city," says Nesci. Three years later, the resulting design festival, which runs through November, boasts 18 separate installations.
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