I really don’t think anyone goes out looking for a clock anymore. So, to realy differentiate yourself in the time telling business you have to make something like qlocktwo. it uses this weird letter matrix to spell out the time in five minute intervals. And it does this at the low price of twelve hundred dollars. I can’t shake the feeling that, although quite beautiful, the clock is not novel enough or well crafted enough to warrant the cost. of course, i can be swayed by a good arguement.

Biegert & Funk – QLOCKTWO.

Lindsey Adleman is quickly carving out a niche for the finest and most bubbly chandeliers available. Each piece is completely unique, hand made, blown glass that include significantly difficult and virtuosic glass manipulations such as incorporating a haunting golden foil into the glass surface.

Lindsey Adelman Studio: installation at Karkula

Let’s face it. We live in a toxic world. Everything we build our home out of or bring our home into is constantly off gassing toxins. Then along comes Bel Air, a product proposal by Mathieu Lehanneur. He proposes with Bel Air to create a new type of air purifier by expertly selecting plants that have been found by NASA to remove cancer causing toxins in the air. And if that were not enough, Mr. Lehanneur has wrapped this new air purifying mechanism in a more than beautiful container. It’s pill shape and white container will fit in to any iPod loving modern interior. all you have to do is plug it in and add water.

Scott Amron sent me a link to his Die Electric project months ago, and I loved it so much that I wrote a post about it and but somehow it was lost in the ether. Finally, I’m back on the case: Die Electric is a play on dialectic mixed with a little die and a little electricity. It’s conversation involving sculpture and a standard A.C. outlet. I’m not sure how the initial aha! moment was born, but once it sprouted Scott wholeheartedly took on the challenge of using the A.C. Outlet as the most useful of structural cantilevers asking himself, ” Just what can I hang off of a plug?”.

The answer, among many other things, is a vase allowing you to add a bit of cheery flowers to any unused power outlet.   Yes, it seems a bit iffy to actually be plugging this into a socket. And, after all, the name “Die” is in the name of the project. But what the hell. I encourage you to buy into Scott’s project.  Just don’t sue me if you get hurt.

Maybe for a slightly safer feeling project of Scott’s, try out the off switch hook. No electricity involved.

A reader has requested that I send a quick shout out to all in the interior design community: Do You Know of a Product Rep. in the United States for the two companies Licht Im Raum and Dix Heures Dix? Both manufacturers produce exquisite work, and I would very much like to know if there is an American rep as well. Please send all response in the comments section. Thanks for reading!

Tubes by Tsunami Glassworks was one of the highlights of ICFF for me. I’m a sucker for contemporary glass design, and this work surpassed all others in my opinion. Each piece in Tubes is hand blown and finished, and each piece has its own character and hue. When all pieces are assembled to make a forest of glass vases a perfect poem is created, but one that can change and evolved to suit the owner’s mood. Also, if you’re so inclined, these green glass vases will make the perfect vessel for the longest of long stemmed flowers. Crazy idea, I know, but why not?

Etienne Meneau has made what I find to be a design that is baffling in its construction and absolutely jaw dropping in its presentation. Alright, you may be saying to yourself. It’s just a really cool decanter. But how did he do this? Granted, I know nothing of glass construction, so maybe it’s really easy to take these multiple branches of glass, stick them together, and make it exactly the size to hold a bottle of wine. I doubt it’s that easy to construct, though. It would seem to me that this enophile’s sculpture would take long planning, and nimble hands to construct, and the form is quite pleasing.

Heineken has created one of the most ingenious products I’ve seen in days. As you can see from the image above, the new Heineken World Bottle or WOBO can be used as a building material after its contents have been consumed. This product presents a real challenge to my moral compass. One perspective is that if you are poor and need an inexpensive building material to create your home, then you can just go around collecting these bottles until you have enough to fashion a home. This bottle can be more easily recycled and thus much less energy wasted in its reprocessing of materials while helping someone build their home. The other perspective is it promotes getting drunk over and over in an effort to gather enough building materials. I can hear the slogan now: “Get wasted for planet earth!” or “Drink your way out of homelessness!” . But, maybe I’m being a bit too cynical.

(via Designverb)

(via  Inhabitat)

(via Archinect)

I am vane. Vanity is something that envelopes me. And I often wonder with such vanity, how can I be so overweight? It may be because I am more lazy than I am vane. I’m also curious. And when curiosity makes friends with vanity it makes me want to do things like grow my hair long to see what I look like or shave off all of my pubic hair just to know what’s going on down there. That’s why I love this mirror by Areaware. It saves me the time of growing that mustache. If I’m curious what I look like with a mustache then I simply go up to the mirror, stand in the right position, and gaze upon my beauty. Ahhh. Doesn’t it make you feel warm inside?

What would you look for in the perfect museum spotlight? Well, first the color rendering would be impeccable. In fact, it would be nice if a museum curator could dial in his or her ideal color for the light. The light would also be quite small and inconspicuous while looking beautiful. The light would not need a whole lot of maintenance or bulb changes. And the light would not get too hot or use a lot of energy. Museum curators: your desires have been answered… I hope. Zumtobel, one of the largest and most well respected lighting companies internationally, has come up with the Tempura LED to solve all of these problems. This tiny black barrel of a light fixture can do all of what I just stated and more. The only thing is, just from my personal experience with experimenting in LED is I’m not even close to convinced. I’ve definitely got to get my lighting rep in our office for a talk because if this works as well as it claims then we have reached a new paradigm in a light’s capabilities.