KLab Architecture have designed the Cocoon Suites, which are part of the Hotel Andronikos on Mykonos Island in Greece.

Mykonos is one of most famous Greek islands with a population of 10000 people that rises to 50000 people during summertime. Mykonos has a unique natural environment full with amazing beaches, rocky hills and treeless desert like landscape, always in relation to the sea. Vernacular architecture is also unique in Mykonos.

Organic whitewashed cubes with rounded edges, curved walls that divide the landscape, paved narrow alleys are some of the endless characteristics of Mykonian architecture that has been evolved through centuries to resist in hostile climatic conditions as very strong winds, drought, intense sunlight and humidity.

A modern interpretation of vernacular cycladic architecture was used into the redesigns of this hotel in Mykonos that was built in 1990. Through a total refurbishment that gradually will be developed, 13 rooms out of 57 have been redesigned by KLab architecture and refurbished following the principles of purity, simplicity, fluidity and surprise. The room, conceived as a modern Mykonian room, uses forms and the essence of Mykonos.

The interior is a compact mass constructed of irregular unaligned walls, with a 3- dimensional feel to them as they are distorted built upwards and slanted inwards. The furniture is designed with the same idea where they seem to be attached to the walls themselves providing the user with the impression that the building is erupting from the island’s rocky land. Every element plays off one another. All the design was conceived as a low tech construction that the local builders using their so far knowledge would create something that would exceed their practice. Budget had to remain low but the feeling and the sense emerged from the room had to be the opposite. Our effort was to create a sexy but pure, a vibrant but calm, a modern but classic room that would compose all these juxtapositions and paradoxes offering to the user an overwhelming experience.

Plaster, bamboo canes, plasterboard, glass, pebbles, mirrors and cement based flooring were used in unconventional ways and combinations. Lighting the room was a game of light and shadow revealing the sculpting force of the space. Illumination is hidden most of the time and different lighting scenarios help to create depending the time the ambience the user like. Light creates a sense of serenity and intimacy coming through the bamboos, under the furniture, through the reflections of the polygonal mirror.

This garden was designed by asensio_mah in collaboration with students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. It was installed at the 2012 Canada Blooms garden show in Toronto.

The installation was an extensive garden that unwraps and twists to create larger garden “pockets” while simultaneously providing an undulating surface that embeds a secret micro garden within its thickness. Garden parcels are located in the spaces created in between the unfolding surfaces, while smaller micro moss gardens are located within the thickness of the surfaces themselves, inviting visitors to interact with gardens of different scales throughout the installation.

The surface itself unwraps to achieve many tasks, defining and framing protected planter spaces, creating multiple orientations for the moss garden, casting shade, while also forming a twisted surface that undulates while structurally stabilizing itself.  As a system, the surface is able to unwrap at different angles to provide different scales of pocket gardens as well as different degrees of shade, producing different microclimates on the moss surface and within the garden pockets.  This allowed the designers to frame the distribution of different plant species based on suitable microclimatic zones produced by the overall installation form.

In response to the brief for developing a temporary garden, a modular assembly approach for the installation was adopted.  The overall organization of the garden is an accumulation of 190 individual boxes,  that on their own may be purposed and subsequently re-purposed after the event as planter boxes.  This allowed for the installation to take on a utility beyond the short one week program of the garden show and to be disassembled and subsequently redistributed as individual units.  The ambition for the installation was to develop an economic and transformable series of artifacts that culminate to produce many different potential configurations or larger scale garden fields by simply adjusting the rotation between each set of boxes, allowing for many different future installation configurations.

Italian architect Angelo Tomaiuolo has designed the ONDA modular bookcase for Tonin CASA.

ONDA is a self supporting library unit in laquered MDF with extra clear glass shelves. Onda is an object of design extremely versatile with structure in modules wich may be arranged both vertically or horizontally for a “wave effect” without limits…

This modular bookcase would fit perfectly in a modern decorated space or even in a minimalist one, adding plenty of space for books and any other decorative pieces.

Paris-based designer Daniel Pouzet has created the Swingrest for German manufacturer DEDON.

The ultimate hanging lounge, SWINGREST is one of the first products to emerge from DEDON ISLAND resort, our Outdoor Living Lab in Siargao, The Philippines. Pouzet, co-architect and designer of DEDON ISLAND, took his inspiration for the SWINGREST from the extra-high ceilings of the resort’s villas. Borrowing the basket-like bottom from his earlier creation, the NESTREST, he has managed to create an altogether new work that feels even more spacious (and fits more people) while seeming to take up less space.

Perfect for hanging on the terrace or veranda, or even indoors, the SWINGREST is distinguished by the purity and simplicity of its concept. Rather than complicate it unnecessarily, Pouzet decided to focus instead on refining the details of the design, developing, for instance, the SWINGREST’s elegant suspension system, its rotating Corian® tabletop and the specially-created cord that wraps around its exposed tubing. Available in a Natural colored weave, SWINGREST comes with an optional fabric curtain cover that’s perfect for making shade and giving privacy while letting those inside see out.

Leave it to Tom Dixon for inspired lighting designs, like these copper and stainless steel shade pendants called Etch. They’re quite beautiful and appropriate for a contemporary home.

The metal gives them a glamorous industrial feel and the geometric shape feels modern. Inspired by the logic of pure mathematics, Etch is made up of thin, digitally etched, copper sheets. When lit, some glorious shadows are created through the shade’s pattern. Some fabulous candleholders were also inspired by this design. The light of a flickering flame must look really awesome through this material

Swedish designer Lukas Dahlén has created the Ori pendant lamp collection.

Sheet metal have the same characteristics as paper when it comes to folding. After a lot of experimenting with paper and watching many origami instruction films I managed to understand the technique and construct a pattern of my own. A lampshade that reflects the light downwards with a light coloured by the golden brass.

The metal is cut with photo-etching, which also cuts halfway through the sheet to create the creases for the folding. A different pattern is used for each side of the sheet to allow the metal to fold in the desired direction.

Swedish designer Lukas Dahlén has created the Weave cupboard.

Inspired by the most common kind of wood and weed weaving the Weave cupboard represents an enlarged version of the technique of weaving something soft around a more stable structure. The top and bottom plane of the cupboard is held together by sticks kept together like a Windsor chair. Four of the sticks continue down to become legs and two are used as hinges. The weave covers the insides and serves as decoration.

Adriano Design and La Castellamonte (Coprodotto) have produced the KERAMOS cabinets that are made from glazed ceramic and wood.

Keramos is the first Coprodotto born from the cooperation between Adriano Design and La Castellamonte.

La Castellamonte is an excellency in the stoves and ceramic production, keeper and innovatory of an ancient tradition of Castellamonte, dating back to 13th century.

From the uniqueness of the production process and from La Castellamonte product, Adriano Design conceives a modular ceramic container. Through a wise and careful research process there has been developed an innovative and distinctive system of ceramic modules fastening through wooden elements, creating in this way a piece of furniture with unique features. Keramos is a modular container with a ceramic shell which makes it immediately recognizable, and which reminds us of the terracotta jars, par excellence containers in human history, which preserved over time their contents.

Keramos is a special, not ordinary, piece of furniture, container of precious things which needs to be preserved more than contained.

Keramos is produced in 99 numerated pieces, signed and provided with a certificate signed below by the Designers and the Producers.

Italian design studio ATTICO have created the Luna Park collection.

Seating system based on a strong presence and on sharp chromatic elements. Armchair, 2 seater sofa and 4 seater sofa available.

Each unit is inspired to the funfairs bumper cars’ protections. Funfairs are crossroads for emotions, voices, as well as a symbolic reference for saturated atmospheres filled with neon lights.

The iconographic language of this place is reproduced with the racetrack, a stage on which pop culture, art and fashion collide. A strong visual impact, a sharp graphic mark evoking car racing world, American cars of the ‘70s and racing alloy rims. The result is a collection of contemporary looking upholstered items suitable for versatile compositions and very comfortable.

Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec have designed the Corniche shelves for VITRA.

Corniches illustrate the idea of creating an impromptu storage area. The idea behind this design arose from the need for small storage spaces to spontaneously keep items. Corniches are individual protrusions in the environments that can be used and organized freely, to put items of daily use to keep them at one’s fingertips or to make a larger installation.