Archive for the ‘furniture’ tag

Customizing the Eames Chair

I have to say, I think this beats the Eames molded plastic rocker that I have in bright red. Drawn by hand, the custom designs for the chairs are done by NY illustrator Mike Perry – and are pretty feckin’ dope.

.:first seen over at Design Milk->

Posted: March 4th, 2010
at 11:20pm by orangemenace

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Categories: furniture,illustration,design

Comments: 3 comments


Photo du Jour 02.03.2010

[photo by Christina Römer]

Designboom has a recent post featuring a number of photos named winners and honourable mentions of a competition launched by the German company Thonet. The competition? To photograph the iconic Thonet no. 214, as a way to celebrate its 150th anniversary.

214: It is often called the chair of all chairs – and rightfully so. traditionally-made chairs had handcrafted joints. Then, around 1850, michael thonet made production cheaper by bending the wooden components using steam and simply screwing them together. No other chair has ever been reproduced as many times.  To date, more than 50 million copies have been made. And thonet is still producing it following the original well-tried and proven principles. Chair no. 14, today 214, is considered the most successful industrial product in the world.

Basically, I just thought the photo was dope – check out the Designboom post for more.

.:via->designboom

Posted: March 2nd, 2010
at 10:04am by orangemenace

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Categories: architecture,photographie,furniture,design

Comments: 2 comments


Kazuhiro Yamanaka: Sleepy Lagoon Table

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A piece by Japanese designer Kazuhiro Yamanaka, the Sleepy Lagoon table provides an elegant storage solution by cantilevering the table-top on one side, revealing a colorful shelf.

And, it’s pretty ridiculously DOPE.

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Sleepy Lagoon(desk)
Year of Design: 2009
Design: Kazuhiro Yamanaka
Dimensions: 860x1600x750mm
Material: Corian(R), Rimex Ti Gold (Sputtered Stainless Steel), Steel (Matt grey powder Coated)

The flowing breeze slides down the surface of the water passing soundlessly.
If we open our minds to the endless surface of the water, which reflects the sky of daybreak, we may receive a message from nature telling us the constant activity of the universe,
The sleepy lagoon is designed to visualise the concept.
The area between the desk top and the curve can be utilised as a space for putting books, news papers, or clothes. A gentle curve is carefully chosen to be harmonized with breeze in the space or even music around the space.

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This ninja right here would LOVE one of these – I mean, look how sexy this thing is! So just in case you’re looking to hook a ninja architecture blogger with some x-mas lovin’, think of this table.

.:Kazuhiro Yamanaka->

Posted: November 13th, 2009
at 1:57pm by orangemenace

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Categories: furniture,design

Comments: 3 comments


NOSIGNER: ‘AWA’ Furniture

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[Cartesia]

Artist NOSIGNER has teamed with Tokushima Wood & Bamboo Industrial Cooperative Society Confederation to create a new wood furniture brand named ‘AWA’. Three of these new pieces were recently unveiled at DESIGNTIDE TOKYO 2009, and are featured here.

When Tokushima was once called the country of Awa, the tradition of wood furniture was initiated by ship builders. Thus, AWA decided to go back to its Tokushima woodworking roots to form this new and yet traditional project to bring Japan’s wood working culture into the future.

I think the dopeness of the projects speaks for itself – nothing like some Japanese minimalism and beautiful wood to create an awesome project. Here’s some info from NOSIGNER:

Cartesia stands for the “Cartesian coordinate system”, that is translated into a structure of drawers that have the capacity to open in two directions. This special quality makes it especially suitable for room corners. The new type of system that can open the different cases at the same time,?is a fundamental shift from the traditional modus operandi. The characteristic form of Cartesia, an inverted trapezium, is related on a rationally based design that implies handles.

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[Imaginary]

Imaginary is a table that refers to the mathematical term of “imaginary number”. It includes an invisible drawer that allows to hide our cutlery and documents.

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[Imaginary]

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[Imaginary]

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[Unit]

UNIT is a series of interior, that is made of the same specification. Combine the chair and the law table. They transform into a bench. Confine the stool and the chair. They become a low table. This series is a flexible interior solution that can be used in numerous ways.

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[Unit]

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[Unit]

.:more->via NOSIGNER

Posted: October 30th, 2009
at 12:20am by orangemenace

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Categories: architecture,furniture,featured ninjas

Comments: No comments


The Knit Chair

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My first thought upon seeing the ‘Knit Chair’, designed by Emiliano Godoy, was of cardboard – something about the color + texture, and the leg design. Closer inspection, however, reveals the true nature of the chair: high quality maple plywood panels stitched together with cotton rope [hence the name].

The construction of the Knit chair speaks about smaller pieces coming together to form a bigger structure. Held together by rope, the piece breaks apart in smaller elements when those fasteners wear out or become loose. The small, individual components can then be put outdoors or into a compost pile, allowing nature to finish the job. Flexibility is incorporated into the design, allowing the chair to dynamically respond to the user’s body, adapting lightly to the movements, size and posture of the user.

This chair won a Bronze Leaf at the International Furniture Design Award in Asahikawa, Japan in 2005.

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Looks pretty sick – I wonder how much flex/deflection there is when you sit down, and when you’re trying to get up out of it, tho. Interesting, too, is this idea that the chair has a limited life span. While yes, lots of furniture falls apart on you over time, here we have something that will loosen each time you sit down and get up. Even if the chair is biodegradable, doesn’t this built-in impermanence make the chair less ‘green’? But, maybe there’s something beautiful about knowing that the chair will only hold together for so long, and must be enjoyed/appreciated while it lasts.

Dope, either way.

::thanks to AMNP reader Kyle for the link::

.:more, via-> GODOY Lab

Posted: August 14th, 2009
at 6:33am by orangemenace

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Categories: architecture,green arch,furniture,design

Comments: No comments


Marek Gut: New Commode

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Designed by Marek Gut, this is a new take on a piece of traditional furniture: the commode. Not to be confused with the modern association of the commode with the bathroom, commodes were originally popular furniture pieces in the 18th, and then 19th, centuries – and were featured as decorative, highly crafted parts of many rooms of bourgeois homes. The word ‘commode’ is actually French for ‘convenient’, referring to the commode’s use as local storage for any number of items you may like nearby in any particular space.

The commode is finished in a walnut veneer, and set on a thin metal frame reminiscent of something you’d see as the base of an Eames’ chair.

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Seems useful to me – a beautiful piece of furniture to add interest to a space, which also serves to store your crap, but out of sight. That, and I love the walnut veneer with the bright yellow interior – pretty dope.

.:more info+images->via Stylepark

[Note: I’m going to be making a serious effort to feature a piece of furniture on Fridays – ‘Furniture Fridays’ – so if you see something you think might be AMNP worthy, please drop me an email at architecture@myninjaplease.com]

Posted: July 17th, 2009
at 6:00am by orangemenace

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Categories: architecture,furniture,featured ninjas,design

Comments: 3 comments


Showroom Ofimodul

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[click images for larger view – more images available here]

Designed by stación-ARquitectura Arquitectos [with Armando Cantú], the Showroom Ofimodul was created to meet the very specific needs of the Monterrey, Mexico based Ofimodul Company – namely, to create a space that linked their design and manufacturing services to a showroom, and the entry to the site.

Specializing in the design and manufacturing of office furniture, the Ofimodul Company takes their products from concept to completion on the same site. A [roughly] 3,000sf addition was designed to join, on some level, the first and last stages of this furniture design/build process – attached to the manufacturing building, the addition creates an entry for visitors / clients that doubles as an exhibition space for finished furniture products. The ‘design’ aspect of the program is then located adjacent to this exhibition space, contained within the previously-existing manufacturing building.

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The design manifested as a simple concrete box – openings clad in glass – that seems to hang off the walls of the existing structure, meeting the ground with nothing more than one concrete wall and the staircase that accesses the showroom. This served the dual function of leaving parking spaces under the structure, so clients and visitors could park directly beneath the showroom volume – and connected the showroom to the interior of the manufacturing building, and the ‘design’ spaces.

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In addition to the beautiful simplicity of form and material choice, I’m really feeling the entry space – the way the volume cantilevers out past the concrete wall/column, creating a covered entry staircase that seems to almost frame the entrants as they climb the steps. Pretty dope.

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::all images + info courtesy of stación-ARquitectura Arquitectos – thanks César::

::photographs by Eduardo Hernández::

::additional images, and larger versions of the images shown here, can be found here on AMNP’s Flickr page::

Posted: July 14th, 2009
at 8:29am by orangemenace

Tagged with , , ,


Categories: architecture,featured ninjas,office

Comments: No comments


South Face, by Massimo Iosa Ghini

South Face 01

Sustainable but beautiful: this is the goal I have pursued in all of my projects for years. South Face is the outcome of this constant quest for sustainable design that engages with actual production systems found on the market.

An installation designed by Iosa Ghini Associati for the 2009 Interni Design Energies, Milano, ‘South Face’ provides informal, sheltered seating for passers-by. Constructed of an insulated modular wall of hollow panels made from an eco-cement, the façade  of the installation provides some thermal insulation for the small space it encloses – while using the south-facing façade as a ‘vertical garden’, intended to absorb a limited amount of carbon dioxide from the local environment.

South Face 02

The designers make the argument that “sustainability is usually associated with sterile forms in which aesthetics are often overlooked”, and therefore their project aims to “create spectacular aesthetic effects, making sustainability both beautiful and feasible”. While I would say that many sustainable projects are both ‘green’ and ‘beautiful’ [obviously], I think that there remains a need to push this argument that projects aren’t ‘good’ simply because they’re ‘green’. I’m slightly concerned that while sustainability will survive the economic downturn and this apparent current trend against the ‘architecture of excess’, that this new trend isn’t appropriately concerned with aesthetic value. Cameron Sinclair isn’t Mies, arguing for a form-follows-function approach that lends itself to ‘beautiful’ design – rather, we’ve entered into a conversation seemingly built upon the idea that the aesthetics aren’t important, which seems to be little more than an excuse for bad design.

.:some additional technical info -> via Interni Magazine

::images + quoted text provided by Iosa Ghini Associati::

Posted: July 7th, 2009
at 1:29pm by orangemenace

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Categories: architecture,green arch,installation

Comments: 3 comments


URBIA: For Small Apts in Big Cities

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OBRA Architects was kind enough to share images of their URBIA Furniture System for Small Apts in Big Cities project, completed in 2007 and winner of a 2008 ID Annual Design Review Award.

Our Furniture Expansion System for Small Apartments in Big Cities, is designed for such lifestyles of minimal materiality—even if it is lopsided since these types tend to accumulate large book or shoe collections, vices that one day suddenly surprise with unexpected demands for additional room.

The project, designed for people OBRA deems ‘urban nomads’, is meant to address the needs of urbanites with small apartments who “fancy perpetual pedestrian investigations and as little time spent at home as
possible”. OBRA proposes that their system serves the function of providing simple space definition, storage, and the ability to travel with these nomadic city dwellers as they move over time.

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The system is made up of hollow wood panels and cabinets – constructed offsite with CNC milled 1/2″ ash plywood -  which are a maximum of 2×8 feet to ensure that the system can be transported through standard doorways, hallways, and elevator cabs. The system can be assembled vertically or horizontally – giving the ability to create partitions in a space, and/or create loft floors in space with adequate height – and has the potential for “endless reconfiguration” due to its modular nature.

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In today’s urban housing market mostly universally characterized by unimaginative and ill-conceived spaces dressed-up as luxurious by the inclusion of a few expensive materials, URBIA proposes a luxury of conception implicit in the harmony of its modular coordination. The proposed system is open-ended in nature, allowing for site modifications and the addition of custom elements that can give specificity to the whole, but it also provides, unlike traditional sheet-rock based interior construction, a built-in rhythm of articulation based on a Fibonacci series that makes proportional mistakes difficult and beauty almost automatic.

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A very interesting concept, it reminds me a lot of the work of Dan Hisel, AMNP featured Ninja of the Month – in particular, his ‘Z-Box’ projects [1 & 2]. The idea to transform rented or temporary living space with a modular, portable, reconfigurable, inhabitable furniture system is incredible – and I especially like the uniform material, which allows personal possessions and furniture to accentuate the spaces. It would be particularly interesting if you didn’t have to pack up your posessions when you moved – if the system was really potable storage, that was arranged into an inhabitable system. Get a new place? Just close up the cabinets and shelves still filled with your stuff [maybe bubble-wrap fragile objects, but thats it] and be on your way. Not sure that that is feasible, really – but it’d be pretty dope.

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[Image: wire-frame drawing of assembly system]

::See more photos – and the ones featured here, but in larger format – here, at AMNP’s Flickr page::

::all images, info + quoted text courtesy of OBRA Architects::

Posted: June 26th, 2009
at 12:55pm by orangemenace

Tagged with , , ,


Categories: architecture,housing,interiors,furniture

Comments: 2 comments