Bamby Chair by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance for Marcel By

“Bamby questions the visual perception of furniture. Face on, it’s a classical and welcoming chair with a solid wood structure firmly planted on the ground and an upholstered seat. From another viewpoint, Bamby reveals a slender and ethereal profile with tilted rear feet which suspend the seat in the air; a leaf delicately placed upon a dynamic structure.”

Bamby Chair, by Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, for Marcel By

Plywood: Material, Process, Form at MoMA

“Plywood,” explained Popular Science in 1948, “is a layercake of lumber and glue.” In the history of design, plywood is also an important modern material that has given 20th-century designers of everyday objects, furniture, and even architecture greater flexibility in shaping modern forms at an industrial scale. This installation features examples, drawn from MoMA’s collection, of modern designs that take advantage of the formal and aesthetic possibilities offered by plywood, from around 1930 through the 1950s. Archival photographs illuminate the process of design and manufacture in plywood. Iconic furniture by Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen, and Arne Jacobsen appear alongside Organic Platters by Tapio Wirkkala (1951), Sori Yanagi’s Butterfly Stool (1956), an architectural model for a prefabricated house by Marcel Breuer (1943), and experimental designs for plywood in the aeronautics industry.

Plywood: Material, Process, Form, at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, Photography © Jason Mandella

Sezz Collection by Christophe Pillet for Emeco

First installed at the The Sezz Hotel St. Tropez, Emeco presents a collection of designed aluminum chairs, stools and swivel chairs entitled Sezz by French designer Christophe Pillet. Known for works that meditate on notions of time as well as the esthetic and illustrative memory, Pillet brings these themes together in five pieces: A series of timeless, handmade recycled aluminum chairs and stools manufactured at the Emeco factory in Pennsylvania USA. “The Sezz chair is a little story about Emeco and what Emeco has become, the capacity of the best of the best. It is a specific story, an interpretation of the Emeco way,“ says Pillet.

“The chair is not made to look a certain way, but to make you instantly want to climb up in it and have a nap. The idea is to be timeless and create desires, using the objects in its purest form. When you collect, you choose items you would like to keep for a long time and not throw away, even when these items are not in fashion, you still love them”
- Christophe Pillet

Sezz Collection, by Christophe Pillet, for Emeco

Four Eyes House by Edward Ogosta Architecture

A weekend desert residence for a family and their dog, the Four Eyes House is an exercise in site-specific experiential programming. Rather than planning the house according to a domestic functional program, the building was designed foremost as an instrument for intensifying a number of onsite phenomenal events.

Four “sleeping towers” are oriented towards four spatiotemporal viewing experiences: morning sunrise to the east, mountain range to the south, evening city lights to the west, and nighttime stars overhead. Each tower contains a compact top-floor bedroom, sized only for the bed, and each with a unique aperture directed towards the view. These bedrooms are equally-sized and unassigned, such that the family’s sleeping locations can be rotated based on each individual’s desired viewing experience. Vertical circulation within the towers is similarly particularized (e.g. ladders, spiral stair, switchback stair, or shallow-riser stair). Ground-floor common spaces form a loose connective field between the discrete tower volumes, and offer a more permeable relationship to the landscape.

The sensations of sleeping and waking are thus inflected by the building’s foregrounding of intensified onsite experiential events. By sleeping in a room elevated off the ground and open to the stars, one might inhabit a deep pocket of silence for a few moments, and perhaps even perceive the movement of the Earth, as it slowly rotates beneath the stars.

Four Eyes House, Coachella Valley, California, by Edward Ogosta Architecture

Shrimp Cocktail Easy Chair by Jehs+Laub for COR

Thanks to its side recesses, the Shrimp Cocktail easy chair has a sharp silhouette that results from the flat cushions and a bentwood shell. Available in a choice of wood, leather or fabric.

Shrimp Cocktail Easy Chair, by Jehs+Laub, for COR

Carpinteria Foothills Residence by Neumann Mendro Andrulaitis

This contemporary residence is designed to seamlessly open unto the panoramic coastal ridge-top site via expansive operable glazed walls. The glazed transparency is balanced and the home is anchored in place by substantial cut native sandstone walls. The architectural design evolved from our client’s desire for a home that is a tranquil place for living, art and retreat.

The project site is located on a ridge in the foothills of Carpinteria, ten miles down the coast from Santa Barbara. The program asked for a master suite, one guest room, a study for two, a more contained den and an informal open living space they could share with their children and grand children. The site strategy was to separate the guesthouse, pool and pool house from the main house, by locating them amongst the oaks on a lower terrace. The smaller structures were easier to place around the mature oak trees without disturbing their root systems. Each structure has its own orientation and privacy.

How to develop a strategy with dramatic 360-degree views was a challenge for laying out the main house. Placing the main living space and study further away from the edge was determined to be quieter from the distant freeway noise. A courtyard created an inward oriented counterpoint to the distant vistas. A flat roof modernist scheme complemented the couples taste for modern art and furniture. Designers in their own right, they were the driving force in the overall design team. The design was limited to a simple palette of materials and forms. A European window and sliding door system was used to minimize the frames and optimize the glass. These glass walls were framed between large stonewalls constructed of the local Santa Barbara Sandstone, and volumes contained in plaster walls with an integral color (pantry, guest room, master bath and closet, storage area). The flat roofs were supported by steel columns separated from the curtain walls.

The landscape design became a hobby of the owner who studied local native plantings that were both fire resistant and drought tolerant. Some large oak trees were brought in to augment the existing oak grove, further nestle the house into the site, and create a foreground to help frame the spectacular views.

Carpinteria Foothills Residence, Santa Barbara, California, by Neumann Mendro Andrulaitis Architects, Photography by Ciro Coelho, via: Contemporist

Soba Chair by Dunja Weber for PCM Design

Soba Chair is a three-dimensional stacking structure for indoor and outdoor use. The frame is made of powder-coated steel rod and the seat and backrest from taut PVC strings which makes the design light, resistant and very comfortable.

Soba Chair, by Dunja Weber , for PCM Design

Chalet Béranger by Noé Duchaufour Lawrance

Despite the traditional chalet exterior appearance, this is no ordinary chalet in terms of its interior. The interior architecture of this family home in the French Alps is inspired by mountains and valleys in a modern character where organic forms are composed around a strip of wood. The entire program, construction, and interior architecture are all built around the focal point of the chalet – a large room where the family comes together around a warm hearth.

Located in the St. Martin de Belleville in the French Alps, this 530 square meter chalet was completed in December 2011 by designer and interior architect Noé Duchaufour Lawrance. The 530 square meter house runs is a three storey construction where the communal spaces are located on the top floor and are isolated from the private quarters. Additionally, a detached 100 square meter barn area works as a guest house. The main quarters are composed of the main living room on the second floor with a spacious kitchen, yielding a total of 150 square meters, five bedrooms with en suite bathrooms and WC, a Jacuzzi area and a game room. The barn has two bedrooms, two lounge areas and two bathrooms.

Chalet Béranger, by Noé Duchaufour Lawrance, Photography © Vincent Leroux, via Yatzer

Beam Table by Luis A. Arrivillaga for MDF Italia

A rectangular table with great visual impact caractherized by the rounded corner of the top joined to the solid wood table leg. The top is made of matt white Cristalplant® and legs in solid wood with a rounded and tapered trapezoidal section available in oil-treated teak, oak and wenge-stained oak.

Beam Table, by Luis A. Arrivillaga, for MDF Italia

Lean Tables by Coordination

The Designers from Coordination got inspired by traditional craftsmanship and created the Lean Tables as a result. By using a wedge, legs and a hexagonal boards from local oak form structural entities. At least three units join to become a table. For structural reasons the legs are slanted and as a result the single pieces seem to lean against each other. The shape is contemporary yet individual. The natural material complements many interior styles. The table is available in two different sizes to allow playful combinations.

Lean Tables, by Flip Sellin & Markus Dilger, Coordination, Photography by diephotodesigner.de