My friend Nik Shulz (aka L-Dopa) creates beautiful designs and illustrations. I hired him when I was an editor at Wired and at Make. In recent years Nik has branched out into furniture making, and his work is just as beautiful as his illustrations. Read the rest
I'm not usually a fan of furniture that converts from one thing into another, because it's usually better to just use the two different things you need rather than have to deal with one crappy transformer. But this wall shelf that converts into a desk looks pretty good! Read the rest
Ad agency Ogilvy Hong Kong teamed up with Ikea and Pizza Hut to create a life-size table, the Säva, that looks just like the little plastic "tables" inside pizza boxes. (Those little tables are officially called "pizza savers.") From Hypebeast:
Read the restEach table arrives in a humorous package that resembles a pizza box and, like other products, comes with details on how to assemble the product. IKEA illustrates a step-by-step process on unpacking the different parts, assembling the legs, calling Pizza Hut, receiving the pizza and placing it on the perfectly-sized table.
The Bauhutte gamer bed, as pictured, includes mattress, headboard with storage, desk, keyboard stand, snack cart (or "energy wagon") and black bedsheets with red piping. [via Rock Paper Shotgun]
Read the restConceived in Japan by gaming desk maker Bauhutte, this cursed concoction is actually a Power Rangers-style amalgamation of all their gaming furniture combined. Only instead of transforming into a mighty-morphin’ humanity-saving mech suit, it’s a mighty-morphin’ gaming prison designed to bombard us with more #content than we could ever possibly consume. The only thing it’s missing is a built-in bog hole. Dystopian dread aside, thanks to the ever reliable services of Google Translate, Bauhutte’s description of their gaming bed does, at least, make for some entertaining reading.
Laura Kampf made this cool looking plywood chair with a storage space for books. She says she'll upload plans for making one of your own soon.
If you like videos of people making things, I highly recommend Laura's YouTube channel. She makes a new thing every week, such as a cargo bike, a bike trailer for her dog, and a solar food dehydrator. I don't know how she does it!
Image: YouTube Read the rest
The holidays are right around the corner, so here are some gems from Hammacher Schlemmer's current offerings.
The Handcrafted Hippopotamine Sofa is listed at $95,000 and "requires over 400 hours to make due to the intricate design and the artist’s painstaking attention to detail."
The Mini Monster Truck is listed at $125,000, promises a top speed of 25 MPH, and includes a "nitrous oxide system for immediate acceleration that enables easy jumps over obstacles."
The Exotic Virtual Adventure Run is $8,000 features a concave monitor loaded with "the otherworldly landscapes" of California’s Joshua Tree National Park, the Pacific coastline, a rustic lakefront village, and Area 51.
The Canine's Passive Solar Condominium is $37,000 and designed to evoke "the passive homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright."
But perhaps the strangest item is the Marble Machine Orchestra, listed at $95,000:
Read the restThis is the mechanical musical apparatus made in Sweden that generates mellifluous melodies with a multitude of marbles. Constructed from birch plywood and steel, it is comprised of gears, pulleys, tracks, lifting fingers, and funnels that work in concert to generate the precisely timed release of marbles which strike instruments. The entire operation begins by turning the handcrank to set the 18" flywheel into motion, which stores rotational energy and provides the musician a way to keep even time. Working similarly to a music box, the machine's marbles strike the keys of the built-in vibraphone, the four strings of an electric bass guitar, a kick drum, snare drum, hi hat, one-stringed modulin, and a sizzle cymbal—the operator pushes/pulls a series of levers to activate/deactivate a particular instrument.
Gavin and Alice Munro are serious about sustainability. On a two-acre field in England's Midlands, they're growing trees that are trained into forming the shape of furniture, including chairs. Read the rest
Lex is a "wearable" chair, an apparatus that attaches to your thighs and waist. Read the rest
Neiman Marcus sells a hot dog couch for $7,100 plus shipping. Read the rest
It's pop art! It's furniture! It's a stack of plastic coat hangers! Yep, the frame of this chair stacks plastic coat hangers. And not just stack them, Designer Joey Zeldon's Coat Check Chair isn't a chair without them.
By bringing the elements of the closet into the foreground of a person’s daily routine, the Coat Check Chair offers a unique design and a gentle encouragement to stay neat. The hangers’ flexible plastic makes the chair surprisingly comfortable, while its impermanent construction lets users customize in terms of hanger color and pattern. Timeless and practical, the Coat Check Chair can fit in your studio, home, boutique, hotel or gallery, letting your closet join the party.
He reports that the chair can withstand at least 170 lbs., which is what he weighs:
You can get the Coat Check Chair through Kickstarter for the early bird price of $449.
Look closely at that hanging lamp.
Big Star Wars fanatic? Then, these are the furniture pieces you are looking for.
There’s never been a shortage of officially licensed Star Wars furniture on the market; most pieces, however, have been intended for kids’ rooms. But that changed in the fall of 2018, when designer Kenneth Cobonpue launched his own higher-end, higher-design Star Wars furniture collection, initially for sale only in Cobonpue’s native Philippines. Now these pieces are available for the first time in the United States, at select retailers and showrooms in 11 states across the country plus the District of Columbia. (Alas, online ordering is not yet an option.)
$2700 TIE Fighter chairs, anyone?
See the entire collection, which includes a Chewie rocking stool and a Vader armchair, at the Kenneth Cobonpue site.
images via Kenneth Cobonpue
Thanks, Heather! Read the rest
Pro Idee's £369 Paper Bed is made of folds of rigid paper that collapse to a narrow sliver and then expand to 200cm length when needed; the materials are lightweight (total weight, 14.5k) and it can support up to 300kg, and the manufacturer claims it's comfortable, albeit with the addition of a foam pad. (via Yanko Design) Read the rest
Never buy a new pillow insert without first delivering a solid, forceful karate chop. If you're in a rush, my favorite chop is at 2:20m, with others at 1:00m, 1:30m, 1:50m ("it's made to be karate chopped"), 2:50m, and 3:20m. [via] Read the rest
Look at this table. LOOK. AT. IT. Why haven't we put the person that designed this thing to work on world peace or figuring out how to make an air freshener that smells like a turkey dinner? Maybe expanding tables like this are old hat to you, but my mind is absolutely blown. Read the rest
The latest episode of 99 Percent Invisible is about the the 1940 Emeco 10-06 Navy Chair, made of bent aluminum and strong enough to withstand a torpedo blast.
Read the restThe chair was made to be relatively utilitarian, with an arched top and three slats coming down the back to meet a crossbar. A curved “butt divot” is one of its most distinctive elements.
To show off the durability of his creation, Dinges took it up to the eighth floor of a hotel in Chicago, where the Navy was examining submissions, and threw it out of the window. It bounced, but didn’t bend or break.
And so the Navy gave its inventor the contract, and he, in turn, opened a factory and called his new business the Electrical Machine and Equipment Company, or: Emeco.
The standard version runs on a built-in modern computer, emulating all your favorite games through MAME - but the cabinet can aslo be customized to run the original JAMMA board of your choice. OriginX comes with a 19" 4:3 LCD, and to boost the authentic arcade experience Hultén adds a custom barrel distortion filter to mimic classic CRT monitors.
(via Uncrate)
Unbox Therapy built this intense gaming cockpit around a Xidax PC, LG 42.5" monitors, the Imperator Workstation Game Chair with massage features, and other components totaling around $30,000. I especially appreciate the "snack cart."
