Zoe Mowat has come up with something I find quite special. Her Circumflex accent chair is a perfect triumvirate of steel, cast plastic, and walnut which creates something that is forward thinking and yet retains an old-world richness. Usually, when I see chairs like this they’re either too clumsy or look like a robot made the chair, but this chair is just right. I can’t wait to actually sit in this chair, though. I see this as a very good restaurant chair except that your back may be a bit fatigued after two hours of dining. Maybe the best use of the chair is somewhere where design is paramount but sitting around should be no longer than a few minutes.

Mixko, as their namesake indicates, is a  company that mixes multiple unlike things together to come up with completely new meanings. They look at an object like a whistle, for instance, and say, “Hey, if the scale of that whistle were multiplied in size by, like four hundred times, then that whistle would make a mighty comfortable lounge chair.” Of course, their mixing does not stop there.  They mix cartoon bubbles with plates, candles with joysticks, and my personal favorite: dog shit with jewelry. The one item informs the other in such refreshing and revealing ways. But the thing that makes Mixko extra special is that they are so young yet so prolific as to beg the question: what will Mixko be in thirty years when the design mashup matures? My answer is that Mixko may rule the earth at that point.

I wanted to get this post out quickly because the BKLYN Designs Expo has just past, and yet I have not talked about the most prolific and possibly the most fun design collective: UM. Their work is just so damn clever. As my cop out, I’ll let them speak for themselves:

At the core we are designers and makers, sometimes designing, sometimes fabricating, most often doing both. We rely on one process to inform the other — often exploring new ways to realize projects.

We are regularly called to work beyond the built world. To date we have developed identities for our clients, mapped experiences for their customers and designed TV sets.

uhuru, to me, may have been the most impressive furniture designers I saw at BKLYN Designs in terms of their creative reuse of industrial products. For example: the Stave Bench and the Bilge Lounge reuse whiskey barrels from the finest white oak. These barells are charred and used only once in the barreling process then discarded or sold. uhuru purchases these barrels and leaves the barrells in a state very close to where they found them to make these beautiful chairs and tables shown above and below. This is what I would consider a very low energy intensive form of recycling which in my mind is the best form of recycling.

But uhuru’s commitment to this type of recycling does not stop with whiskey barrels. They have a variety of products that make use of whatever industrial scrap might be around. Their website features products such as the Fenced In Table made from repourposed fence parts- this table you won’t believe.

From time to time, I like to pull out pieces from the archives that I’ve found particularly beautiful. This is one of my favorites from December 2006. Enjoy!

Horm is unlike any furniture company I know of. This company has hired a gaggle of famous architects as their designers. One piece I love is Steven Holl’s table. I’m a “star”-chitecture fanatic who has visited a number of Holl’s American buildings and observed his work with jaw-dropping awe. Now, I have an opportunity to own a piece from the hands of this master. I don’t know how to describe this piece except to say it’s very Hollian. More specifically, this work adds a third dimension to the early experimental watercolors of Holl. This piece also smacks of a Mad Max movie.

Flatpack is a tufted wool rug by Big-Game, a Swiss and Belgian design house. The rug concept was born from the idea of taking a simple cardboard box and flattening it out so that each tab of the box spreads to make a rug.  I like this simply because it exploit an already interesting form of the box. I guess where I fall a bit short with liking this design entirely is I was really hoping you could turn this fabulous rug into a box, so in a sense, the rug could easily carry itself along with whatever you want to put into it. The design ends up being visual mimicry rather than functional mimicry which somehow slightly degrades the design in my mind.

One of our readers has pointed me towards the Magnum Dining Table by Team 7 Available at Wharfside, and I immediately fell in love with this table. What’s so cool about it?

First, let’s begin with the material choices and the details. The table comes in a number of hardwoods, but the oak and walnut finishes are jaw dropping. The Walnut is shown above, and from the picture, you can see just how perfect the joinery is. Every line appears to be studied over and over again by a master craftsman to come up with this final design. Not only is the joinery heavily scrutinized and perfected but the profile of the table itself seems to be conjured up by some sort of magician to create its astounding thinness and perfected modern form. This is a table even Mies van der Rohe would be proud of because of its attention to detail.

And if the table being so incredibly thin is not enough to astound, then the fact that the table magically converts to seat 4 more people within seconds should put you over the top. As shown above, simply slide the legs and pop the top, and you are ready for any dinner party. The mechanism is just that simple. So simple, in fact, you wonder why no one had considered it before.

So, there you are. Modernism perfected in a table. All furniture designers can take a breather for a few years.

I am in love with this product! These are the unbelievably simple measuring devices by Royal VKB called Balancing Bowls. Royal VKB, by the way, is a young Dutch kitchenware firm with a vast stable of talented designers. Their work really creates new rules for how you can eat serve and make food. It’s quite exciting. The Balancing Bowls are a colorful alternative to using measuring cups and spoons. So what do these bowls do that’s so cool? They have two cups. One cup is weighted so that the cup sits firmly on the table while the other cup is raised in the air. Pour your ingredients into the raised cup, and when the cup lowers to touch the table you know you have the right amount of ingredients. What a beautifully simple concept. The bolds seventies blues, greens, and browns are also quite attractive colors for the bowls. I should say that before you run out and buy the Balancing Bowls it’s quite common in Europe to measure things for cooking by their mass rather than their volume like we do here in America, so these Bowls don’t do us much good.

Now that another fashion week in New York has passed, all my future fashion posts for the next several weeks are going to be old news. So, if you really want to stay on top of the latest fashion trends, then this may be the wrong blog. If, however, you are simply in the mood for seeing an image or two of a really beautiful fashion product, then step right up.

Here’s a product that just makes me want to be a woman, or at least not be ashamed of carrying a clutch. Its the Wood Clutch by Emilio Pucci. The work of Emilio Pucci, if you’re not familiar with it, can best be described as a young Peter Max meets El Lissitzky. I’ve got to cut it short today, take al look at these artists works, and you will find Pucci.

Last week, I reported on a piece of furniture that was an update on the log. The update, by Draw Me a Sheep, made the log into a square shape which is quite a convenient shape. But what if trees grew vertically in a boomerang shape? Damn, that would make a sweet lounge chair! Any lumberjack could go out with their chainsaw and cut themselves a pretty damn comfortable piece of furniture. Just slap some legs on it, and this chair is good to go.