It often stems from small things – a colour on a wall, an old object, a postcard, a tag… An inconspicuous item occasionally turns into a graphic presentation.
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The 2 DJ heads, producers and longtime friends have joined forces and put all the chips on one number; Lulu Rouge. Thus creating one of the most interesting and refreshing sounds coming out of Scandinavia.
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Fantastic Nordic ingredients are currently spouting up everywhere – wild garlic, ground elder, stinging nettles, dandelions…
It’s all growing right outside our doorstep! In addition to interior design and trends, I have worked with food for many years – a field that is close to my heart. This has resulted in several cookbooks – most recently “Naturens Spisekammer” (“Nature’s Pantry”) from 2011. [CN1] It includes recipes featuring all those wonderful ingredients we are quite free to collect from our natural surroundings.
This also explains my frequent and eagerly anticipated trips to Restaurant Radio. The eatery is situated directly opposite the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s former Radio House (Radiohus), hence the name.
Somersby was pouring new special ciders to the guests and Bolia.com had created two “City meets nature” lounge areas with huge sofas for the guests to chill in while chatting and listening to the music.
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The young Polish design company Buck.Architekci was given four weeks to design the interior of one of Europe’s largest Art House Cinemas – The New Horizons (Kino Nowe Horyzonty) in Wroclaw – and six days to complete its construction.
The large empty space was ditched in favour of erecting flexible, portable walls. The lighting, fittings and fixtures were specially designed and fitted by local craftsmen, while other pieces of furniture (such as the chairs) were selected for their budget-friendly mix of new and old designs.
Art student Regan Appletorn explains how the idea for the design started:
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The owners of Mogeen Hair Salon & Hairschool – hairstylists Hester Wernert and Siko Van Berkeler – are known for high profile hairdressing and they often do the hairstyling for major fashion shows and international fashion magazines.
“We are your one stop shop for all that is great in confectionery. From gummies to chocolates, jellies to lollipops- we have it all! We source our delicious confections from all over the world so that we can provide you with the best tasting “Total Confectionery experience” Looking for something different? Or that perfect gift?,” writes The Candy Shop about its range of sweets.
As a tribute to good craftsmanship, vintage design and American heritage, the American brand Sandast has opened a flagship store in a former car repair shop in Los Angeles.
The designer and artist Milan Franeta, who originates from Montenegro, is behind Sandast. As a child, he watched countless American western movies. About his fascination with this American genre, he says: “I fell in love with all the colours of western style, the boots, the saddles, the jeans.” Milan Franeta later moved to the USA where he started the company Sandast, which sold handmade belts and bags. The company has since expanded and its exquisite bags are now sold in various different countries.
With slogans such as “Life is short, drink good tea” and “You Drink Coffee, I Drink Tea My Dear”, this concept is right up my alley – and no doubt also appeals to the growing number of loyal tea drinkers.
The modern, minimalist simplicity of the shop’s interior design is ultra-aesthetic. Teas, tea pots and cups are presented almost as if on display in a museum, and visitors have the opportunity to taste the teas at one of the shop’s GongFu-style Tasting Stations.
P&T wants to raise awareness of good teas and has this to say about what they do:
“We are passionate about providing sophisticated tea drinkers with fine and rare teas as well as related accessories through a unique customer experience.
At P & T we appreciate tea and tea culture as age-old agents of vitality, creativity and interpersonal communication. With this in mind, we want to interpret and promote tea’s role in our modern 21st century lifestyle.”
“We’re really into educating people about fine teas with a pure tea foundation. It’s really about the tea,” explains Jens de Gruyter, who owns the shop and has collaborated with the designer Fabian von Ferrari on its concept and interior design.
As its name suggests, Paper & Tea also sells paper – gorgeous cards and gift wrapping paper with beautiful designs and wise quotes.
P&T´s tea drinking and brewing accessories also feature high up on my wish list – surely there’s always space in one’s collection for another tea cup and pot to boost one’s daily enjoyment of tea.
Paper & Tea, Bleibtreustrasse 4, 10623 Berlin
Mon-Sat 11am-8pm.
Many young designers think about how they can reuse materials in their designs. A beautiful and fun example of this is Saran Yen Panya’s latest range of furniture. He calls it “Cheap Ass Elites”, a range in which he plays with combining cheap everyday plastic items with more exclusive furniture components.
“The chairs are comprised of ‘low’ common household plastic objects – storage and laundry baskets –
as the seating (back, base and arms), the lower part of the chair a simplified version of those stereotypical upper class chairs made out of wood.
This project is an illustration of a world where there’s no rich ass or poor ass. An ass is an ass,” says Saran Yen Panya about the chair project.
Saran Yen Panya originates from Thailand, where he qualified as a designer. He also holds a Master’s degree in Storytelling from the Department of Graphic Design and Illustration at Konstfack University of Art, Craft and Design in Stockholm, Sweden. His work combines design and storytelling in a visual way. The furniture represents a statement to the world about the great divide between rich and poor.
“The designs are a blunt and sarcastic juxtaposition between rich and classical elements such as the louis armchair, ottoman chair, or the styles of William Morris, with low-taste elements such as mass-produced plastic appliances, common household items, working class objects etc. the clash of classes is simply shown, yet portrays the idealistic society where the rich and poor merge.”
It is just so unfair that you can’t buy these chairs. They are simply wonderful – a MUST-HAVE in my eyes. All of the chairs are one-of-a-kind pieces and some of them are currently being exhibited at the Swing Gallery in Benevento in Italy.
Additional pieces can be seen at
The siesta is alive and well in Barcelona, and it is ideal to visit the city all year round. The temperature is never below 10 degrees and Barcelona has an average of 2,500 hours of sunshine a year (the figure for Denmark is around 1,500 hours per year).
But why continue to be irritated by the sea of cables when you can make a big deal out of them and make them a part of art installations on the walls? Tucked away in attractive copper or metal pipes, you can make your own graphic installation. Granted, it does require quite a few pipes and a handy touch, but the effect is fantastic.
Exaggeration heightens the effect, but you can also achieve an attractive effect with just a few pipes. The pictures are from an exhibition in Sao Paolo, Brazil, where the French/Brazilian architecture firm Triptyque designed the Pipe Light installation in cooperation with the interiors store, Micasa.
http://www.facebook.com/micasa.volb
Pipes – and copper pipes in particular – is a big trend popping up in many other places as well.
For example, check out one of my previous blog posts from the restaurant Amelie & Friends, where pipes with cables are placed along walls and ceilings as a very decorative element.
http://blog.bolia.com/amelie-and-friends-2/
And some may remember from the Formland trade show’s trend zone last autumn, where we had a chandelier of copper pipes and a trendy pipe fixture on a kitchen wall. See the ideas again here:
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And what a fantastic mix of contrasts! Past and present – vintage and design – Art Nouveau and street art – trash and luxury – it all comes together here in the beautiful historic buildings in central Graz.
‘New Scandinavian Design’ is what the Danes at Bolia call the style of its furniture. It is based on a mixture of innovative style and large design models. According to Bolia, only ‘honest’ and high quality materials are used.
A place where you feel at home, in addition to being in such beautiful surroundings as those found at Hotel Ett Hem in Stockholm. “Ett Hem” simply means “a home” in Swedish and offers a very different experience from what you’ll typically encounter in metropolitan hotels.
The Danish Super-DJ is one of those who have made the electronic underground stage what it is today. Anders Trentemøller started in 1997 and have worked with international names like Royksopp (What else is there – Remix), Moby (Go – Remix), Depeche Mode (Wrong – Remix) and Franz Ferdinand (No You Girls – Remix).
