Sheila Hicks

Sheila Hicks is an american textile artist. She first learned the traditional techniques from latin American and then she combined it with the contemporary technologies. I love how she uses heavy and thick textiles and how the colors and the forms suggest the origin of her passion. She works between New York and Paris and she collaborates with the biggest museums in the world. Love her!

http://angiehranowsky.blogspot.com/

Cabins

Don't you want to escape for a weekend to one of these cabins?

via miss moss

Forever Bicycles

So cool!  How great is this!?  “Forever Bicycles” by Chinese activitist artist Al Weiwei is made of 1,000 bicycles installed in a 10-meter high space in a moving, abstract shape to symbolize the way in which the social environment in China is changing.  

Numéro 111

That is cute! Olive is a table lamp with a young and strong image. I love it from the front view and I like how they have hidden the light source. 

www.numero111.com

Jean Couvreur

Here it is another young designer to keep an eye on! I'm just in love with the Photochrome lamp. Those colored layers are made with glass and they give a color accent to the lamp, but simple and elegant. I like the merging point which in other compositions give a great color and graphic to the lamp.

www.jeancouvreur.com

Vittra Telefonplan

What do you envision as an idea work space?  Is it open and breathable?  Do you like to work in a structured walled enviroment?  My dad showed me a link from Fast Company on a new concept in work space and class rooms for children... with no walls.   "That’s right. Vittra Telefonplan, in Stockholm, was designed according to the principles of the Swedish Free School Organization Vittra, an educational consortium that doesn’t believe in classrooms or classes. So instead of endless rows of desks, it’s got neon-green “sitting islands” and whimsical picnic tables, where students and teachers gather. Instead of study hall, it has “Lunch Club,” a smattering of cafeteria-style tables on a checkerboard floor for working or eating (or both). And instead of an auditorium, it has a faceted blue amphitheatre that rises up in the middle of the school like a giant floating iceberg. The place resembles a mini amusement park, only with laptops (yes, each student gets his or her own laptop)."  Fast Company.   Im really excited by this way of thinking where children are allowed to really stretch and learn in different ways.  In highschool I had a hard time with the structure and hated being forced to stay in a classroom row on row it seemed to linear.   With the Vittra method it promotes different ways of learning--another key part of the Vittra method--such as group work, concentration work, show-and-tell, and so on.   It's interesting how each child is given a computer.   I'm in the middle between the Waldorf approach to learning where computers are removed until grade 10 and the Vittra method were they are integrated fully in the system.    It's really is hard to know if this environment is better set up to educate children but with creative minds opening up the topic of whats best for there learning Im all for it.  please read the full article here

Jamie Hayon

Beautiful retrò lines and color palette for that sofa and I just love ceramics...

A designer to keep the eye on! 

http://www.hayonstudio.com/

I love my bike don't get me wrong.  "Butter" and I have been through alot together.  She came with me when I moved to Montreal (I didn't even bring my cat! I think that says something).  But I'm noticing that she's not what she used to be.  However.... I might like to give her a new name and a new paint job while I'm at it.  Update the old girl and get her ready for the show.    The snow has officially melted which means Spring will be her in a few months.  And so my biking project will begin.  First up finding handle bars like this and breaks.

Ok my new obsession is letters... large, oversized, different typeface Letters!  I love when you remove a letter from a work and let it stand on it's own it is a shape with space around it and a personality.  Look at this N I am so draw to the red and the angles its so much more then just an N.  I'm gonna start looking for letters!

I am loving this nap chair! Don't you want one!?

Innovo Design

The chair is called Piao and it is made with paper layers: isn't it cool?

I really like the other objects they have done: they are clean, but with personality and something alive in them. It is nice to discover some cool designers from the other side of the world: the studio is based in China and I guess we'll see some other cool chinese designers soon.

http://www.innovo-design.com/

Doshi Levien

Nipa Doshi, from India, and her boyfriend Jonathan Levien, Scottish, London based have found the perfect mix between the Indian handmade knowledge and industrialization. All their products have a story to tell with elegance and spirit. 

http://www.doshilevien.com/

The Whitepod Hotel

During the last week the city has been covered in a beautiful layer of snow.  The mountains are looking magnificent and although its freezing outside I just love getting all bundled up in layers ready for an adventure in the snow.  If you share a love of snowy days like I do The Whitepod Hotel is right up your alley.  This hotel is comprised of 15 geodesic domed pods, furnished with a modern Alphine aesthetic and overlooking Lake Geneva. Guests have access to 3 private ski lifts which can be operated 24 hours a day upon request and 7 kilometers of exclusive trails.   Isn't it wonderful?  You, the stars and the snow! source 

The tulip Table

The Tulip Table and Chair designed by Eero Saarinen in 1955 and 1956 for the Knoll is on my list of great pieces of furniture I would love to have.  I love how simple it is and how it was and still is such an iconic piece.  

NHOW Berlin

I am itching to go to Berlin! I gotta do it at some point this year.  You know that feeling when you keep humming that awesome song thats stuck in your head.  I get that with Berlin.... I keep thinking about it!  Reading blog reviews on cool shit thats going on there doesn't help the desire to see this place!  OK so I am going to begin unloading this on the blog and I hope thats ok with you.  First up NHOW Berlin.  WOw!  Check this hotel out!  Last November NH group opened up there newest hotel NHOW in Berlin smack dab in between creative epicenter of the city, between the Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg districts, two communities known for their art scene and edgy nightlife.  This unconventional structure is a center of excitement and inspiration!  The NH group is often known for there food and beverage but this has a whole know slice of cake.... this hotel is out of this world.  The view from the hotel is stunning, one can look across the river and have a perfect view of the Molecule Man, a striking metal sculpture that seems to stand on the water just on the edge of the Treptow district.  Karim Rashid is the interior designer  in charger of the interiors and the furniture design of the 304 rooms and suites of the hotel  furniture that was custom made for this exact hotel.   Guests of the hotel can choose pink, blue, or grey rooms (all with floors to match). "Rashid’s style beyond the furniture and color schemes of his ''digi-pop design'' alter-reality, he also made the rooms transient, able to change for whatever a guest should need in a moment.  For example, if the television is on, it’s on display, but when the tv is switched off that television disappears from view and retreats into the mirrored wall unit in which it lives.  This same mirror unit serves as a working desk and so on.  The bathrooms have glass walls that let light through yet are not transparent so as to forego the guests’ privacy.  Thats not all this hotel has in store.... it has 2 recording studios!  The Analog Mixing Suite that boasts up-to-date sound recording technology with some of the most coveted vintage equipment in the world.  I am amazed and excited with all the creativity that is in motion.  These crazy amazing things like the NHOW hotel keep us inspired and excited to discover what is beyond out reach... or perhaps with fingers crossed a cheap seat sale on Luftansa would make seeing something like this reachable!   Read the full yatzer article here

West Mary Castle

I doubt Im the only one who dreams of living in a castle one day!  Perhaps this is a bit a ostentatious thought but one can dream a bit.  So I came across this reinvention of a Church turned Castle.... wow!  This 1925 Mission Style Church has been reinvented by Urban Nature Inc into a Castle fit for.... me!  Giving it a modernized look yet staying true to some of the old world charm of the church it once was.    I love the little details in the structure and architecture of the place like exterior stone work and the super heigh ceilings (I dream of high ceilings as i am currently living in a basement ... with a slight hight requirement).   source

take a hike

Austria's Green Lake in the Hochschwab Mountains is a hiking trail in the winter. The snow melts in early summer and creates a completely clear lake. The lake has a grassy bottom, complete with underwater trails, park benches, and bridges. 

Nir Meiri - Desert Storm

''Made of desert sand and iron with LED lighting.

The use of sand as the main material plays on the tension between its wild nature and the delicacy of the molded end design. The shape of the sand-molded lamp shades brings to mind primitive desert structures, while the fixtures overall figure resembles that of plants that blossom in the Mediterranean seashore.'' from http://www.nirmeiri.com/

Burfitt

I'm fascinated by this picture.

www.burfitt.com

Bijulesnyc

www.bijulesnyc.com

Good and healthy food for 2012!

Here it comes a detox diet after the christmas holidays.

Oven-baked cod with potatoes, tomato, black olives and rosemary.

Bon appetit!

Slow Food Market Fair Zurich

This is the brochure of the Slow food market fair in Zurich. I really like the graphics of the booklet and I wish I could have gone there! I was actually in Zurich by then, but I had no time to visit it... We were in a rush to go to the Vitra Museum and we were there for one night... too bad. Next time!