House of Today, a Lebanon-based non-profit organization cultivating the local design scene, has unveiled its brightest initiative yet: The Candle Project, a unique collaboration between 10 Lebanese designers and 10 Lebanese artisans who worked hand-in-hand to create a collection of sculptural, design-forward candles. The artisans reside at the Centre Hospitalier Beit Chabeb Workshop, a hospital that puts on artisanal workshops for its disabled patients. All the proceeds from The Candle Project will go towards supporting Beit Chabeb and its invaluable initiatives, as well as the ten designers and House of Today’s mentorship program.

Blrrrrr by 200 Grs features six candle wicks that put the flame – a symbol of transformation – in the spotlight.

Aspiration by Aline Asmar d’Amman is inspired by the Lady of Lebanon, Harissa. The gradual elevation of the candle is symbolism for the spiritual act of elevation, “a nod to the eternal hopes for a brighter Lebanon.”

Strat by david/nicolas features three steps and three wicks, a simplified idea depicting the numerous layers of Lebanese architecture.

Nothing is forever by Flavie Audi is the idea that everything is transient, even solid rocks. The two “rocks” here are molded together to show “the cosmic entanglement between all beings and things.”

Chrysalis by Carla Baz is a sculptural candle that, once it been fully used, becomes a vase for dried flowers.

Spiritual sphere by Nada Debs creates a mesmerizing effect once lit, casting light and shadows onto the surface of the sphere.

Sinkng sun for another one by Richard Yasmine is inspired by the idea that. like life’s ever-changing cycles, a sunset is not an end but the promise of new beginnings.

I am here by LimbObject creates a comforting glow and offers a poetic hand to those who need one on dark nights.

Flaws by Sayar & Garibeh celebrates imperfections and reminds the viewer that that they are worthy of self-love and acceptance.

Silhouettes by Tamara Barrage starts as a sketch on paper, made only with a thin marker in hand.

To learn more about The Candle Project or to purchase a piece from the limited collection, visit houseoftoday.com.

As the Senior Contributing Editor, Vy Yang is obsessed with discovering ways to live well + with intention through design. She’s probably sharing what she finds over on Instagram stories. You can also find her at vytranyang.com.

Many of us do everything to welcome as much light into our homes during the day, especially with the increasingly shorter span of daylight during late autumn through winter. Even so, as evening arrives, the lights come on and the window shades come down. But what if you could accomplish both needs with a single solution? Hunter Douglas Aura Illuminated Shades are an innovative window treatment solution serving those two needs, capable of simulating the comforting presence of natural light while also retaining the sense of privacy the evening promotes.

Initial impressions of the Aura Illuminated Shades are similar to any other Hunter Douglas automated window shade. And that’s intentional, as the best window treatment should be handsomely innocuous rather than an attention grabbing presence. The Aura’s design offers the same convenience as the brand’s other PowerView Gen 3 Automation powered products.

Just like any other Hunter Douglas window covering, the Aura can be used to filter or block out light using the brand’s user customizable PowerView Gen 3 Automation system.

But Aura hides a novel integrated feature that makes it stand out from any other window shade solution: a parabolic reflector and a reflective liner engineered to evenly disperse light from an LED array. Shining from the top down, the result is a window shade capable of simulating the presence of sunlight while closed.

Hunter Douglas’s system allows users to adjust the brightness anywhere between 0% to 100% and the color temperature of light from 2200K to 6500K, all adjustable from the brand’s PowerView app.

A wide gamut of other lighting moods combining brightness and lighting temperature – all without any evident hot spots – create the convincing ruse of sun shining in.

Hunter Douglas Aura Illuminated Shades PowerView Automation app allows for granular control while opening and closing the shade, along with the option to turn up the brightness and adjust the color temperature of the Aura’s integrated LEDs. Photo: Jacob Snavely

If you prefer the tactile to purely app-based controls, the Pebble Remote offers a pleasing in-hand option. Voice activated controls are also supported for hands-free operation. Photo: Jacob Snavely

So what does one do with shades equipped with integrated lighting beyond the cool party trick of living the “shades down, lights up” lifestyle? Like other Hunter Douglas automated solutions, the Aura Illuminated can be programmed to follow specific routines and a user determined schedule to open, close, light up, and turn off. An obvious application is scheduling the Aura as a silent and luminescent alarm, using lights rather than a nerve-rattling alarm tone to gently awaken the senses by simulating the increasing radiance of a sunrise.

Even when the day’s forecast doesn’t call for a particularly bright morning, the Aura can be customized to introduce just the right amount of light, rather than the soul-draining 110% brightness typically associated with office lighting. An additional bonus is that Aura’s even illumination should prove beneficial for those required to jump onto regular Zoom calls.

With the LED component turned off, the Aura Illuminated’s room-darkening liner helps create an inviting sleeping environment (shown here with the Vignette Modern Roman Shade). Photographer: Jacob Snavel

Aura is available in a variety of Hunter Douglas shade styles – including Vignette Stacking Roman Shades, Sonnette Cellular Shades, and Designer Roller Shades – with the addition of a variety of fabric options to further complement nearly any room. For more information, check out HunterDouglas.com.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.

For a little saccharine eye candy take a look at artist Evan Nesbit’s textured paintings that beckon viewers for a visual taste. His unusual technique reinterprets the relationship between material and canvas while questioning what the “front” could be. Marbled and Bewildered was his third solo exhibition at Van Doren Waxter gallery and New Yorkers are hungry for more.

Charles Gaines’ Southern Trees exhibition, previously on view at Hauser & Wirth Gallery, sparked joy for those who were able to see it. Upon subsequent visits, patrons were able to delve deeper into the visuals, discovering new readings and moments of connection. While each artwork can stand alone as an individual composition, the series together in context tells a greater story.

What we re-quire is / silence, 2023

Brooklyn-based artist Kennedy Yanko’s exhibition Humming on Life presented 10 new artworks on view at Jeffery Deitch. She uses salvaged metal and blanket-like “paint skins” to create artworks that challenge the definition of painting through a range of oppositions. Dichotomy of material is explored through the fabric-like folds and crushed-metal dents as paint alters perception.

Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting), 2016

Famed painter Gerhard Richter announced his retirement from painting in 2017 setting off a chain of events that led to a celebration of his work with a selection of “final paintings” at David Zwirner Gallery. The main attraction was his artistic re-invention exhibiting 76 drawings completed from 2021-2022 and sculptures produced this year. It is truly a cause for jubilation.

Fred Eversley, “Cylindrical Lenses” at David Kordansky Gallery, New York, 2023

Fred Eversley’s gem-like sculptures stood tall like crystal stalagmites in Cylindrical Lenses when on view at the David Kordansky Gallery. Measuring up to 9-feet-tall and made from highly-translucent resin, the collection of objects exists somewhere between the physical and the ethereal. The forms also function like massive magnifiers that visually liquify, layer, and tint visitors who walk past.

Installation view, Yayoi Kusama: I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, David Zwirner, New York, May 11—July 21, 2023 © YAYOI KUSAMA, Courtesy of David Zwirner

The 94-year-old Kusama presented a grandiose version of her 2013 Infinity Room, which included a dazzling exhibition of polka-dotted pumpkin walls, towering flowers, and new abstract paintings. The fresh show, I Spend Each Day Embracing Flowers, was on view at David Zwirner Gallery.

Installation view, Doyle Lane: Weed Pots, David Kordansky Gallery, New York. Photo: Phoebe d’Heurle, courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery

While the summer was a quieter time for patron traffic, exceptional works were still on view. Innovative art and visual stimuli elicited curiosity from viewers into the methods and madness that inspired these four artists. Doyle Lane: Weed Pots at David Kordansky Gallery celebrated the influential figure’s impact on studio ceramics with his tectonic pots. Ann Veronica Janssen’s Structural Color series showcased the optical possibilities of glass at Bortolami Gallery. Group show Plastic Stars at Tara Downs Gallery comprises an international set of female-identifying artists whose artwork shares intriguing visual “plasticity.” And one of the most beguiling exhibitions was Harry Gould Harvey IV’s at PPOW Gallery.

Nicholas Galanin, In every language there is Land / En cada lengua hay una Tierra, 2023

Public works of art are some of Manhattan’s best forms of entertainment – and they’re free! Nicholas Galanin’s 30-foot steel sculpture In every language there is Land / En cada lengua hay una Tierra was an engaging, site-specific work at Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, where it was framed by infrastructure and set against the city skyline. Presented by Public Art Fund, four giant glyphs spelled out “LAND” in a format that referenced Robert Indiana’s famous “LOVE” design. Having used the same material and dimension as the US-Mexico border wall, it’s made a powerful statement.

Jacob Hashimoto, In order to get the self-destruct mechanism started, 2023 (detail)

Jacob Hashimoto’s exhibition The Disappointment Engine was anything but a disappointment while on view at the Miles McEnery Gallery, which presented 11 new works including a massive wall-to-wall, cloud-like installation upon entry. His kite-constructed works have captivated viewers for nearly three decades with meticulous hand-craftsmanship to manufacture a digital optical effect reminiscent of pixels. His wall works often consist of six suspended layers of circular paper and bamboo “kites” that obscure as much as they reveal, shifting with every change in gaze.

Ugo Rondinone: bright light shining. Gladstone Gallery New York

Ugo Rondinone debuted his astounding Bright Light Shining sculptures at Gladstone Gallery. Made from bright yellow painted bronze, each of the three roughly 20-foot-tall objects ignited surprising contrasts between the natural and unnatural while twisting perceptions of material, time, and scale.  The large skylight and gray walls subverted the viewers sense of time to allow for the perception of a phenomena that naturally occurs in the blink of an eye.

Tent-Camera Image on Ground: View of Monet’s Garden #3, Giverny, France, 2023

Each photograph in Abelardo Morell’s “Tent-camera Photographs” presented at Edwin Hook Gallery featured in the New Ground exhibition placed you in the actual footsteps of Monet and Van Gogh, to reveal the ground on which these artists stood, combined with a contemporized view from that spot. Morell’s signature photographic technique produced a wondrous new way of seeing the world, and offered a fresh new perspective of the legendary artists.

Check out the rest of Design Milk’s end of the year coverage here!

With professional degrees in architecture and journalism, Joseph has a desire to make living beautifully accessible. His work seeks to enrich the lives of others with visual communication and storytelling through design. A regular contributor to titles under the SANDOW Design Group, including Luxe and Metropolis, Joseph serves the Design Milk team as their Managing Editor. When not practicing, he teaches visual communication, theory, and design. The New York-based writer has also contributed to exhibitions hosted by the AIA New York’s Center for Architecture and Architectural Digest, and recently published essays and collage illustrations with Proseterity, a literary publication.

This stunning Paris home belongs to gallerist Amélie du Chalard, whose love of art and design has helped fill her space with treasures, new and old, from Fritz Hansen. After discovering the Danish brand, she fell in love with the designs of Poul Kjærholm, and over time, has collected a number of his pieces that now live in her gallery-like home, amongst other favorites.

Previously dated in appearance, Studio Alexander Fehre came in to transform the main level of an old villa in Stuttgart, Germany. After removing the most amount of walls possible, the results are a clean, minimalist home with mostly white surfaces. To give the space a more cozy feel, a curvy wood clad storage structure was incorporated into the center, along with pops of dark green teal.

Photo: Prue Ruscoe, courtesy of BowerBird

Casa Figueira is a family home nestled in the tranquil suburb of Rose Bay in Sydney, Australia. Four design firms were at the helm of this design, which perfectly strikes a balance between a contemporary style and a mid-century Brazilian aesthetic. The desire to create an open-air living space, resulted in an open pavilion flanked by two long sides of sliding glass doors marking the perfect indoor/outdoor connection.

Photo: Hanna Połczyńska Kroniki Studio

Designer Mateusz Jóźwiak, of Photon Studio, hired himself when it came time to design the Box in the Box Apartment for himself and partner in Poznań, Poland. The finished apartment showcases a perfect blend of spaciousness, functionality, and natural materials, all centered around a clever, light-colored birch plywood structure that houses many functions.

Photo: Nicole Franzen

Located in New York City, this East Village apartment underwent a renovation by GRT Architects, which focused on reimagining the apartment’s layout while maintaining its early 20th-century character. The redesigned interior features a new layout, organized by a central corridor and tailored to the clients’ lifestyle.

Photo: Riccardo Gasperoni

For this 90-square-meter apartment in Milan, chromastudio dramatically reimagined the interior with a new layout and a dramatic color palette. Setting the tone for the apartment’s aesthetic right off the bat is the vibrant kitchen with a royal blue island, paired with a light blue Smeg fridge, rusty orange colored tiles, and a bright yellow shelf.

Destination Eichler partnered with Eyerly Architecture to reimagine this dated, 1970s split-level ranch in Pleasanton, California, and bring it into today’s times. The young owners appreciated the original 70s character, but they desired a fresh spin with added functionality seen in modern builds. Post renovation, the house now features modern details, mid-century furnishings, and a plethora of beautiful tile from Fireclay Tile.

Photo: Kevin Scott

Outside of Redmond, Washington overlooking Ames Lake, the Scout Lake Residence lives on a site that was once a Boy Scout camp from the 1950s through the 1990s. Stephenson Design Collective designed the lakeside house and gave nod to the client’s job as the CCO of the video game Minecraft by using the game’s use of blocks for inspiration. Once you know that fact, it’s impossible to not see the stacked blocks that make up the tree-surrounded home.

Photo: Roberto Ruiz

Located in one of Barcelona’s oldest neighborhoods, this 65-square-meter apartment is housed in a building that dates back to the 13th century. A young Italian woman hired Colombo and Serboli Architecture (CaSA) to completely transform it, which resulted in an open layout with vaulted ceilings, a playful color scheme, and original details. With the Barbie movie making a big splash earlier this year, the pink used throughout was on trend.

And the most popular interior design post of 2023 is…

Photo: Nikolay Korsun

The most beloved interior of the year is this cozy 430-square-foot apartment in a new modern building in Rivne, Ukraine, designed by TAK office. The compact studio consists of a single room that operates as a kitchen, dining space, living room, and bedroom. To maximize space, the designers opted for a Murphy bed that’s hidden when not in use and when it’s time for sleep, the room transitions into a bedroom with a privacy curtain.

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.

Beauty, utility, and sustainability are the three qualities Portland, Maine-based Designtex hold close. For more than 60 years, the brand has been designing and manufacturing applied materials for the built environment using what they refer to as “material intelligence.” By definition it’s Designtex’s knowledge of how materials are best applied in different settings and environments combined with their commitment to research, and belief in the power of improvement as a means for systemic change. And now, with the release of the Digital Studio tool, the brand has launched a one-of-a-kind digital design platform that enables designers and architects to create and customize a solution for any environment in a matter of minutes with a fast turnaround time.

Simple, intuitive, and waste-free, the Digital Studio encourages experimentation with color, scale, materials, and imagination. With an ever-growing collection of curated patterns, including designs by artists local to Portland, you can quickly and easily create custom textiles and wallcoverings – and receive samples within a week. Everything specified within the Digital Studio is produced at Designtex’s digital printing facility, which is primarily staffed by working artists. There they’re able to produce at an elevated level of detail and craftsmanship, just as they would their own work. The pride they have in the final product is evident.

“There is a joy to being hands-on with the making of materials,” said Karen Gelardi, principal designer and collaborations liaison, Designtex. “We have that here at the print facility and hope that designers will feel a direct connection to the production process through the Digital Studio tool, like this is their factory and we are facilitators.”

So, how do designers benefit from Designtex’s Digital Studio? To quickly and easily create custom textiles and wallcoverings for projects, choose a pattern. You can then tinker with the color palette until satisfied before utilizing the 3D visualizer to see your personalized design applied to different products and in different scales. Easily make any adjustments until it’s to your liking, or choose to save your work to revisit later. Once you’re ready, a single click places an order for a free sample – or several – that will arrive within a week. After that, a full order for a project can be received in only two weeks time.

Designtex’s substrate offering includes two durable wallcoverings, three multi-use fabrics for upholstery or panel, and a high-performance upholstery with a silicone stain repellant and fluid barrier. Staying true to their commitment to sustainability, there is also a circular, multi-use textile and a vinyl-free wallcovering. All substrates are SCS Indoor Advantage Certified and have HPDs. The wallcovering inks are Greenguard Certified, the textile inks are OEKO-TEX Certified, and Designtex offsets carbon emissions from their Portland factory. Products and samples are produced on demand, so there’s no waste in the production process.

Champ by Elizabeth Atterbury

Last month, I had the chance to experience Digital Studio at Designtex’s Portland facility for myself, and can vouch for not only the platform’s ease of use and quality output, but the level of thought and time that went into perfecting it all. The technology, selected designs, and user experience have all been pared down to an artful, mindful level that can be appreciated by all who interact with Digital Studio. Choosing a pattern, customizing the color palette, deciding on the scale, and finally choosing a substrate took me less than ten minutes – though you can easily spend more time experimenting with all of the options available. The big takeaway: it’s not an overwhelming experience, but rather a simple one that includes your personal touch and delivers.

“The ability to offer just-in-time production options to our clients is so exciting. Designers and architects are juggling evolving client needs and, as always, tight timelines,” said Oriana Reich, VP of Marketing, Designtex. “With the launch of our Digital Studio, we’re equipping them with a tool that reduces their time to customize and produce materials, and we’re helping everyone within the design ecosystem maximize creativity and efficiency.”

Budding by Christopher David Ryan

Champ by Elizabeth Atterbury

Collective by Jenny McGee Dougherty

Drypoint by Anna Heplr

Double Stripes

Ground Cover by Karen Gelardi

Fleur de Tachee by Rachel Adams

Studio Oxford

Studio Scene

Photo: Kelly Beall

To learn more about Designtex’s new Digital Studio, visit designtex.com.

Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she’s likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.

Exploring the relationship between the physical and physiological, Jesse Wine often experiments with anthropomorphic forms in his work. Crafted from a multitude of materials including ceramic and steel, this piece also exhibits an oxidized copper finish with limbs emerging from a chunky bed-like structure, transitioning from a static to kinetic force.

Influenced by the irreverence and cheekiness of pop art with a minimalistic approach, this sculpture was designed to emulate a calligraphic or typographic symbol – designed from individual lipstick capsules crafted from aluminum and finished in a bold yellow polyurethane paint.

Executing textural and sculptural art often exploring political and cultural issues affecting the Latinx community, Pepón crafted this anatomical heart from crepe paper to emulate a piñata – the installation both sonically and visually conveying characteristics of a human heart, even designed with speakers playing the artist’s own heartbeat.

Photo: Courtesy Casey Kaplan Gallery

Designed by hand and incorporating primarily basswood, artist Matthew Roney manipulates this sole material with various tools to produce an abstract sculptural design, revealing a deconstructed artful anatomy which was inspired by American folk art and influenced by a tradition of non-western art.

Photo: Ramiro Chaves

Crafted from Carrera marble, Claudia’s oeuvre typically incorporates biomorphic forms utilizing industrial technology processes. Comte’s main muses include waves, sonar, and of course cacti – which she playfully reworks to embody a more ecological influence.

Photo: Courtesy Mennour Gallery

Conceptual artist Daniel Buren is known for his minimalist mirror motifs. Created with a geometric pattern exhibiting a color block design, this mirror is crafted from 16 aluminum prisms and blue adhesive opaque vinyl, creating an optical illusion of striped rectangular prisms depending on which angle the reflective artwork is orientated.

Photo: Courtesy Marianne Boesky Gallery

Incredibly rich in both texture and color, this artwork is reminiscent of a bird house crafted from driftwood washed up on the beach. The artist assembled and reworked various pieces together to make the bird house look like a natural form, then beautifully embellished the piece in an ultramarine blue hue.

Photo: Tiffany Harrison, courtesy Schwarzwalder Gallery

In a showcase titled ‘Just Shut Your Eyes Tight, from the ABCs of everyday humanism,’ these neon-hued sculptures are inspired by the mundanity of how we typically experience nature, yet with a contemporary and artful twist. The statuesque green sculpture evokes resistance and stability, and the smaller ones also incorporate similar organic shapes, citing building blocks as a muse.

Photo: Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery

Carol Bove’s work is composed through the experimentation of modern metal sculpture. Influenced by industrial construction and architecture, and like many of her artworks, these monochrome blue sculptures are crafted from stainless steel and finished with a coat of urethane paint.

Photo: Courtesy Mennour Gallery

Working with varying juxtaposition of materials including granite, stainless steel, and concrete, Kwade’s work explores the connections among science, space, and time utilizing geometric and linear forms.

Photo: Courtesy Mennour Gallery

With a playful approach to creating sculptural art that is universal yet also intimate and relatable, artist Valentin Carron makes figurines depicting anonymous human forms that are crafted from children’s modeling clay in vibrant color schemes, baked in his own oven, and then carved in wood or cast in aluminum.

Photo: Lance Brewer, courtesy of Marianne Boesky Gallery

Jammie Holmes is a self-taught painter whose work is inspired by his childhood growing up in the South, often depicting domestic scenarios and everyday life. Crafted from powder coated bronze and acrylic, this monochrome flower pot is one of his first experimentations in installation art and features floral motifs that have appeared in other recent works.

Tiffany Harrison is a multidisciplinary creative who is skilled in visual + literary storytelling. She immerses herself in artful endeavors with creative direction + design, drone videography, and prop styling. Tiffany’s work is super conceptual and is inspired by contemporary art, which she is truly passionate about. You can connect with Tiffany on her website and Instagram.

Drip-by-drip and accompanied by a soothing ASMR-inducing metronomic tempo, Japanese technology and home appliance brand BALMUDA’s coffee machine proved to be Design Milk readers’ most popular home/kitchen appliance of the year. We’ll drink a cup of our favorite roast in recognition and celebration of coffee and good design’s enduring appeal.

There’s nothing subtle about these limited edition conspicuous Lime Green made-to-order earbuds from Bang & Olufsen’s ongoing Atelier Editions line. And that’s probably at the heart of the appeal of these citrus hued earbuds in a world where everyone else is seen wearing white or black in their ears.

Televisions are supersizing every year, with numerous manufacturers pushing OLEDs and LCDs towards normalizing 100-inch displays in our living rooms. But another option exists, one allowing for an enormous picture pushing upwards of 150-inches that will allow you to retain a living space without a large black rectangle set up along or onto the wall, and that’s an ultra-short throw projector. Our favorite and yours was the LG CineBeam, a decor-friendly design with videophile specs.

Made with a real oak or walnut paneled face and embellished with a faux leather tab, these gaming machines stand out as the epitome of Scandinavian design – simple, sophisticated, and evocative of the natural – a description rarely associated with the realm of PC gaming. The subtle approach earned the Gothenburg-based Fractal North a Red Dot Design Award 2023, and we concur.

With its pugnacious mug, this tiny tot of a truck designed by Yves Béhar won us over with not only its memorable exterior design, but also its specs: powered by a 106kWh battery pack capable of charging up to 80% capacity in a mere 20 minutes, the 380 kW dual motor AWD produces a serious 500hp, meaning you could accelerate from 0-60mph in just 4 seconds and be good for 350 miles of range. Wow.

Maybe we should not be surprised our readers are interested in learning more about developments in residential battery storage systems noting more and more households are welcoming PHEV vehicles into their garages while also upgrading energy efficiency/resiliency at a time when electricity costs are skyrocketing. Lunar’s modular hardware is designed to grow as needs increase over time, allowing homes to add blocks with the relative ease of LEGO bricks.

This adorably small teardrop camper’s compact size paired with its full range of electric-powered accoutrements made for a popularly tempting example of how “roughing it” won’t feel quite so challenging in the near future as EV technologies continue to allow for an assortment of creature comforts in tow.

Similarly, but not the same, this other teardrop-shaped camper trailer also proved popular in 2023 for all of us daydreaming of leaving the desk and hitting the road. But where the aforementioned MINK-E presents itself as a Wall-E cute option, the Boulder leans more into a Tesla-inspired design, including its more angular profile, gulping doors, and aero wheels. More importantly, the camper is engineered to extend the range of an EV hitched to it, essentially easing any concerns of range anxiety when setting off on a roadtrip.

We posted numerous keyboards over the years and none have stood out for being so luxuriously modern as these monolithic minimalist slabs embellished with bands of polished steel, copper, or rose gold that give each peripheral the feel of something deserving of a place within a jewelry case. The starting price of $669 did not seem to deter curiosity, noting the Berlin-based Geistmachine’s keyboards ranked as our second most popular post of 2023.

And the most popular technology post of 2023 is…

The LG Smart Cottage made an appearance at the IFA 2023 technology show in Berlin, showcasing the brand’s latest and greatest smart home appliances and integrated app-controlled features all within a modestly-sized prefab residence. Optimized for energy efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC,) and powered by solar, the “Sea Ranch exterior meets Silicon Valley condo” rated as our most popular technology post of 2023.

Gregory Han is a Senior Editor at Design Milk. A Los Angeles native with a profound love and curiosity for design, hiking, tide pools, and road trips, a selection of his adventures and musings can be found at gregoryhan.com.

A motorized version of a Murphy bed makes raising and lowering the piece of furniture much easier thanks to a push button that puts the bed silently in place, as well as hides it again, in under 15 seconds.

Created by Odin Visser for Moooi, the contemporary, versatile suspension light is playful yet elegant, simple in functionality but visually intriguing.

The clock’s gently curved aluminum design, paired with its minimalist clock face typography, results in an iconic timepiece. It’s now available in four new colorways.

This series includes representations of some of the architect’s original masterpieces in the form of lighting, honing in on Wright’s refined style that highlights the relationships between natural and manmade elements.

The Toneoptic rpm isn’t your ordinary vinyl storage solution – it cleverly marries design and functionality to elevate your music listening experience.

Celebrating their 80th anniversary, the brand released a selection of home goods and furnishings from their archives with a colorful, contemporary refresh.

Melt gets you organized with four products that are 3D printed using bio-based filaments made from recycled food packaging waste with other compostable or renewable materials.

The IKEA research and design lab created Couch in an Envelope as a way to challenge traditional design and make it more sustainable, adaptable, and easy to transport.

Designer Sabine Marcelis’ 20-piece VARMBLIXT collection is a collaboration with IKEA that includes sculptural lighting objects, serveware, rugs, and more.

And the most popular Home Furnishings post of 2023 is…

IKEA had an amazing year of design and collaborations, with four posts included here acting as proof. This limited-edition series of 26 products, brings together Nordic design and self-care rituals. From furniture to glassware to textiles, vibrant patterns reflect nature back at you.

Kelly Beall is Director of Branded Content at Design Milk. The Pittsburgh-based writer and designer has had a deep love of art and design for as long as she can remember, from Fashion Plates to MoMA and far beyond. When not searching out the visual arts, she’s likely sharing her favorite finds with others. Kelly can also be found tracking down new music, teaching herself to play the ukulele, or on the couch with her three pets – Bebe, Rainey, and Remy. Find her @designcrush on social.

At this year’s Design Miami/, New York-based Jeremy Anderson, designer and cofounder of Apparatus, has unveiled his latest body of work at Gallery FUMI: a set of three totemic floor lamps accompanying an installation titled Space Relics, which feature three similarly conceived pendant lights suspended just off the ground. Through his ceramic practice, which he uses as a conduit to tap into the child-like play of making, assembling, and painting, Anderson shapes his lighting into anthropomorphic shapes and forms. Symbolically, the pieces are a reflection of our human condition – that is, individual entities that form a collective society.

The lights are made from clay and are adorned with illustrious accents, domed disc-shaped elements, and striped patterns that conjure up themes of space, or perhaps ideas of a utopian planet. LED strips and borosilicate glass contrast against the clay to create a new genre of lighting, a tangible realization of the imaginary world that Anderson envisions.

Photo: Ethan Herrington

Photo: Ethan Herrington

Photo: Ethan Herrington

Photo: Ethan Herrington

Photo: Ethan Herrington

Photo: Ethan Herrington

Photo: Ethan Herrington

Photo: Stephane Aboudaram

Anderson’s works were a part of a larger exhibition presented by Gallery FUMI, who capped off its 15th anniversary celebrations with the award of Best Stand at this year’s Design Miami/ 2023.

Photo: Stephane Aboudaram

Photo: Stephane Aboudaram

Photo: Stephane Aboudaram

Photo: Stephane Aboudaram

Photo: Stephane Aboudaram

Photos courtesy of Gallery FUMI.

As the Senior Contributing Editor, Vy Yang is obsessed with discovering ways to live well + with intention through design. She’s probably sharing what she finds over on Instagram stories. You can also find her at vytranyang.com.