Category — Design

Estelle Sauvage – ECAL graduate – pays tribute to the 100w lightbulb, an item once prevalent in many European homes some time ago that is no longer for sale in certain countries, replaced by its energy saving equivalents. Up to 90% of energy in a traditional lightbulb is wasted and Estelle built her kettle design around this concept, by harnessing this otherwise wasted energy – to make tea in style.

Her design uses an incandescent lightbulb mounted on a wooden base coupled with a glass jug with a deep recess that fits right over the lightbulb. Switched on, the heat from the lightbulb slowly heats the jug/kettle up to 90 degrees celcius – not enough to boil water, but adequate for making your afternoon tea.

A very novel way to making tea for your guests and a very clever tribute to the incandescent bulb

Everybody’s often faced with the same conundrum when it comes to finding neat cabling solutions. More and more households are now hanging their TV sets against the walls of their homes because they can – with flat screen TVs.

A very common method for concealing your AV cabling these days is to build wall panels for your TV area. These wall panels are usually made from wood and have a small gap between the wall and the paneling to house the cables, hiding them from plain view. The TV and peripheral speakers can then be mounted against the panel. Whilst this is a rather costly design option, it has a long lasting aesthetic value to the overall look of a living room. For an affordable and more instant alternative, IKEA offers the BENNO TV bench with panel for RM699.00. With the BENNO, a flat screen TV can be hung on the reinforced back panel with the wires running behind the panel. The one good thing about the BENNO is that unlike a custom installed wall panel, it is mobile, not fixed.

Some homeowners go to the extent running cables within a wall, which requires some hacking and patch work to be carried out – this is also permanent and is a nightmare for cable maintenance. The cheapest current alternative is to use PVC cable housing which you can then paint over. However, this crude alternative is a slight eyesore because of its pronounced protrusion.

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Artist and designer, Pamela Ferrari, has launched her online store – PamelaFerrari.com – which features a ‘casa’ or home section retailing bedding, decorative pillows and table linens. Ferrari’s unique style of blending bright colours in her products makes them excellent additions to brighten any home.

Inspired by color and her extensive travels and life in Italy, Ferrari’s original fabric designs are available for purchase by the yard for online shoppers and designers.  Visitors will be able to select one of Ferrari’s original fabrics and customize their order for the home collection.  Citta Blue, a fabric inspired by Ferrari’s favorite cities around the world, is one of many fabric designs available by the yard, as a pillow, quilt, duvet, or sheet set

Born in Buffalo, New York, Pamela spent a childhood year in Rome with her sculptor father, decorator mother and six siblings.  She always knew that she would return to Italy.  She spent thirty-two years in Florence, and together with her Italian husband, lovingly restored a 1000-year-old guard tower and a 15th century farmhouse. Here her passion for painting translated into a lifestyle brand of fashion and home design which she’s now transported to Eastern Long Island. Her work reflects a Mediterranean sensibility:  chic, zestful, and free

Visit her online store today – you never know what you might pick up!

The studio apartment, all bachelors want a fab looking one but often don’t end up living in one for long when it’s time to nest with their other halves. Why? Because ‘there isn’t a big enough kitchen for me to do my cooking’, ‘I’d bring my work home but there isn’t a proper study here’, ‘I wish we could have a bath installed in our unit’ …

In comes Gary Chang, designer extraordinaire…

Gary designed his 32 square metre studio apartment into a space that can be transformed into 24 distinct rooms – all done with very little time and effort. Simply by moving partitions and sliding or pulling cabinet doors, the apartment can transform from bedroom to living room to study to kitchen and 20 other configurations! This simply is amazing design at work.

Not only has Gary Chang created a completely functional space from the 32 square metres he had to work with, he’s done it with resplendent style and taste.

living room to bedroom by pulling down the Murphy bed

tv cabinet can be shifted out to reveal pantry and minibar

study to dining just like that!

tugging the cd rack reveals a bath!

Watch the video to see this amazing home in action:

embedded by Embedded Video

YouTube

Hats off to Gary and his amazing piece of design work. I’ve always wanted to live in spaces which had transforming capabilities and one of my future projects is a study that transforms into my AudioVideo getaway. I’ve got some plans for that now but there are details which haven’t been covered. That would definitely be a project I’d highlight in detail on Howshouse!

Talk about cool. The polar bear storage unit epitomizes coolness in storage solutions. The storage unit comes neatly flat packed and has shelving capabilities both sides of the bear, making it perfect as a partition or even a standalone piece in the corner of your room/hall. The cliche pose lets you immediately identify that the black storage unit is unmistakably meant to be the silhouette of a polar bear.

Available from pedlars – steep enough that you’ll be certain that if you get it, not many others will have a similar unit.

Talking about cool tables – the Float Table would definitely be way up there. This amazing table is made up of 64 blocks which are magnetized and held together by tensile steel cables. With each block levitating around other blocks, this table is an amazing sight to behold. This really is taking design to the next level.

The retailers, RockPaperRobot state in their site: materials – PVC, magnets, steel, secrets, wood and aluminium. I really like that!

The downside with a side table like this is how are you going to put your electronic gadgets on it? What is you accidentally do? Will the magnetic forces scramble the device?

Still, it sure is a sight to behold. Pricing is available upon request. RockPaperRobot takes in customized orders too

The Tea Pod is a fun organic multifunction system which is meant to grow together with your child. Shifting and flipping it into different positions allows it to be turned from a stool to a bench, ottoman, table or even a play item. The playful Tea Pods can be upholstered in Crypton or Ultra suede. Colour choices are aplenty to complement or completely contrast your living area.

The Tea Pod is sold separately in two separate sizes – small and medium. It is extremely light and durable, being made from compressed foam. According to Iglooplay, the Tea Pod was designed to engage children by combining organic forms with ergonomics and modernist sensibility. The form provides a safe place for children and enhances creativity through play and integrates gracefully into contemporary, everyday family life. Iglooplay also states that the furniture uses resource-efficient molded ply construction with hardwood veneers which have been obtained from sustained yield forestry practice. Having fewer pieces in your home that can serve a variety of ages means less stuff and less waste. Each product is tested at an independent safety lab to ensure juvenile product compliance.

Imagesource: 2modern

Gone are the days I work from my crappy, wobbly, too-small-for-my-liking desk! I now write to you from my new Werndl Emerge workdesk! Well, it’s not exactly new – I’d term it pre-loved. You see, the company I work for is moving office and the designers they hired to dress up the new office has probably told them that apart from the office workchairs, everything else does not align with the concept they’ve got going for the new place.

So what’s a multi-billion dollar company to do with all these unwanted furniture? Why, host a furniture sale of course and I was fortunate enough to get my hands on this Werndl Emerge workdesk which still looks brand spanking new (not a mark, not a scratch) for a steal. For a simple looking workdesk, it’s the heaviest of its kind I’ve come across. Solidly built and made in Germany, a brand new Werndl Emerge would set me back RM3,912.00.

Here’s what the Emerge looks like

What’s really cool is that the desk is part of an office system which supports a multitude of accessories

What I really appreciate is the cable holders that run the length of the underside of the table, allowing me to neatly tuck in the cables for my lamp, computer power cords and phone charger. The table is on the large side at 63″ at its widest and 40″ depthwise for ample working space. I still can’t quite get over how immaculate its condition is despite being around a couple of years in the office. I really appreciate how much care the previous user, a Partner at the firm, has put into the table and the fact that I didn’t have to wipe down nasty spit gum or boogers on the underside.

If only they decided to sell off the office workchairs. The Herman Millers are to die for!

Designers at Elium Studio were inspired by phone icons found in computer desktops and transpired to manifest the icon into a real life working cordless phone as depicted in the image below.

The icon phone isn’t just about looks alone – it features VoIP support, stereo speakers, capability to stream internet radio (yes, it has a built in Wi-Fi capability), hands-free function, SMS text-messaging, an integrated radio and a colour LCD display! For a minimalist phone, it sure packs a load of features! I’m certain many would jump at the opportunity to have this phone even if it didn’t come with all the uber cool features.

Imagesource: eliumstudio

Ah, the joys of summer! The heat is here, the surf is on, and of course, I am thoroughly researching my favorite aspect of summer: an awesome vacation! Among other destinations, I looked at Hawaii, which is tried and true stuff. Been there, done that. But something about Hawaii is always appealing.

"Something" about Hawaii is always appealing.

This time, however, instead of checking in to my trusted Oahu Hilton hotels (thank you, reward points!) or my “budget conscious” Best Western, I played around a bit looking at some of the – shall we say – “out of my league” resorts. Hawaii, a place of enchanting beauty, is also home to some of the finest and most celebrated hotels in the world. And, like all upper echelon resorts, these vacation hotspots feature rooms and interiors of exquisite design and startling visual stimuli.

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