We’ll say it time and time again: (sometimes) less is more. OTAP is a small collection of tables and benches first presented at Maison&Objet that are high-quality and simple in the best ways. Brought to life for Cruso by cross-disciplinary designer Julien Renault, the pieces are versatile and can be used on their own or in a group, in both public and residential spaces. Four sizes and seven color options invite you to play and experiment with combinations that provide storage or a place to sit.

Renault’s systemic, objective, and rational approach to design carries over into the production process of OTAP. With the goal of optimizing and simplifying, the tables and benches are built with a limited amount of machined parts and mass-stained wood panels (Valchromat). Made in Belgium, OTAP tables and benches are flat-packed for delivery and can be assembled easily using self-tightening connectors.

To learn more about OTAP tables and benches, visit cruso.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.

Light does more than illuminate: it helps you claim space. At least that’s what designer Thor ter Kulve had in mind when creating Sticklight, a contemporary interpretation of the classic torch, for Weltevree. The portable outdoor lighting also adds a sense of adventure and playfulness to picnics, patios, and more.

“This claiming of a place is a kind of primal instinct, something people have always done. We used to draw shapes of bears on a cliff, later we marked our presence with light,” ter Kulve said.

“When I look at my surroundings, I often think: What if I could make this place even more exciting, even more fantastic? Often the answer to this question is a product in which the user enters into a relationship with the environment,” he shared. “This is also the case with the Sticklight, which gives you a kind of identity because you decide how to use it. Where do you take it? Are you going to discover something? Experience an adventure? That way, as a user, you enter into a relationship with your environment. And that is my ultimate goal. I want to make people bewildered by the environment we live in by looking at what is right in front of them.”

Claim your space with Sticklight by firmly poking the pin at the bottom of the pole into the ground. Tada! You’ve just created a bit of personal space in the outdoors that’s yours for a little while. Sticklight’s portable, minimalist design helps to make these moments feel more like the indoors – cozy and warm. Made of powder-coated aluminum, Sticklight is available in Bottle Green and Oxide Red.

Sticklight can also be put to use indoors with an available wall and base holder. It could contribute to the ambiance in the study, bedside, or any number of spaces thanks to three light modes that range from functional to mood lighting.

To learn more about Sticklight, visit weltevree.us.

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.

I think these stackable candles are so fun and add something extra beyond a traditional candle. Available in a 4 Stack, 6 Stack, or 7 Stack option, you can get as many as you want and re-stack them over and over again to form different candles, or keep them in their original formation. Either way, they’ll add color and playfulness to your shelf.

While we’re talking about candles, I keep going back to this house-shaped box of matches. I love lighting matches when I go to burn a candle and having this decorative box sitting out makes it even easier. No more hiding away generic boxes from the grocery store, hardware store, or your neighborhood bodega!

Thoughts of stained glass can often conjure up visions of Tiffany-esque florals, religious motifs, or camp craft projects, but not these days. More and more glass artists are leaning towards modern designs, like this geometric panel I bought recently. I love anything geometric and when you throw in some Yves Klein/cobalt blue paired with clear textured glass, I’m all about it. Plus, I love supporting small businesses and artists and when you get to enjoy their work every day, it’s a win-win.

I recently got these earrings in the mini version (about 1″ long) and I love them so much, I really want to get the original, larger size. They’re simple yet eye catching, and they’re really great quality. The minis are ideal for everyday wear but I think the larger version is perfect for going out. If you really want to elevate the earrings further, you can add charms but I haven’t tried that yet.

Ever since I saw news of the Dhapi en Naraka art exhibition sharing works by Wally Wilfred, I was hooked. Wilfred’s colorful work combines traditional techniques with unexpected color palettes, showcasing a modern Aboriginal art experience. Wally says about the exhibition, “‘These are the bones inside the devil devil, Yolŋu and animals. These are very important to us and our homelands.’ The bones have their own songlines. When someone passes away they get the bones and they sing all day and then they bury them. That’s how they used to do it in the olden days. Then the boss one (junggayi) will make a totem stick for the grieving family. They cut a tree and paint it and decorate it with feathers. Then they dig a hole and stand up the totem sticks they painted. It stays there forever as memories for the family.” The work is beautiful and intriguing, making you want to learn more about the artist and artistic journey.

This post contains affiliate links, so if you make a purchase from an affiliate link, we earn a commission. Thanks for supporting Design Milk!

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.

Ian Alistair Cochran’s resin furniture and home goods remind us of simple, flat disk lollipops with their translucency and rounded corners. The shapes of each piece play off the prism effect inherent to the resin itself, refracting light and creating different depths of saturation. Surprisingly, Cochran’s work doesn’t use glue or fasteners to hold it together, rather it relies on hand-carved notches at each of its joints.

The Chicago-based designer creates contemporary art furniture in resin, fiberglass, and composites, and has dedicated his career to exploring unconventional materials and the relationships they form. Back in December 2022, we shared his work from the Through and Through show in Miami, and he now has three available collections: Plump Series, Dew Drops, and Echo Tables.

While resin might not seem like an obvious material choice for making furniture, it comes with a slew of benefits attached. It’s weather-resistant and designed to withstand the elements – including sun, rain, and extreme temperatures. Even with these factors added in, resin won’t warp, fade, or decompose, making it a great material for outdoor use. Resin furniture is long-lasting and relatively low-maintenance, and can be easily cleaned and polished with Pledge and a microfiber cloth. It doesn’t get any easier!

Plump Bench

Plump Bench, Small

Plump Coffee Table

Plump Console

Plump Vanity

Plump Mini Shelf

Plump Trinket Dish

Slender Echo

Echo III

Dew Drop

Ian Alistair Cochran

To learn more about Ian Alistair Cochran’s resin furniture + home goods, visit tulestefactory.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.

Lucianne Canavan is a multi-disciplinary textiles artist-designer and recent graduate from Textiles in Practice at Manchester School of Art, whose work was shown as part of Green Grads at the London Design Festival in September. Her work focuses on sustainability and community and she aims to bring solutions to the waste produced by the fashion and textile industry through the promotion of mending, repair, and creative well-being.

Tell me about your childhood, education, and background and how you first became interested in repair.

I was very fortunate to grow up in a family surrounded by artists and makers, and although no one worked specifically in textiles there was always a biscuit tin filled with sewing supplies! My mum’s motto was very much “make do and mend.” I was always handy when the arm of a jumper tore or a button fell off but I had never put too much thought into it and had always tried my best to make it look like there had never been any damage.

Growing up with a disability that caused chronic fatigue meant I was limited physically and I often felt arts and making were my only outlet as I was unable to take part in sports activities. I remember first learning to sew around the age of four, I made a lavender pouch in the shape of a love heart and kept it under my pillow for years, I have always cherished that memory as it feels like a marker of a milestone in my life.

I enjoyed textiles in college but chose to focus on fine art and portraiture right up until my very last assignment in my foundation year for which I stitched a “Garbage Tapestry.” As a cathartic protest, I gathered all the rubbish from around the college grounds and stitched it all together in a big wall hanging along with other political statements that were relevant to the climate crisis at the time. That felt really good – I was able to create from waste whilst sharing my voice and connecting with others by creating a platform for conversation.

During my time at Manchester School of Art, I focused heavily on sewing and utilizing all the scrap fabrics I could, especially tartan. I found that my work was heavily inspired by woven fabrics and decided that I also wanted to weave alongside my embroidery practice. It was fun to juggle the two and see how they fed off one another but my goal was to bring them together cohesively and seamlessly. This is where I first delved into the world of mending.

What appeals to you about repairing existing objects versus creating something new?

I have always felt things very deeply, I have a strong sense of justice and a need to do things “the right way.” To me, this means causing the least amount of damage to the environment as possible. I am aware that nobody is perfect in this as our world isn’t set up to really allow us to do so, but I can try my best! Knowing how much waste is created by fast fashion; the idea of buying an outfit for one night only to send it to a charity bin the next day; and seeing the mountains of waste on the news just made me feel helpless. I was determined to not add to the mess we’ve found ourselves in but to bring solutions and hope. We don’t need new things – enough clothes already exist we just need to find ways to restore the love we once had for the items we are now throwing away.

There are many words for repair with slight nuances in their meaning – mending, fixing, hacking, restoring… which do you prefer in relation to your work and why?

I always steer toward the term “mending” when it comes to my work, partly because I am most familiar with it, but also because of the phrase “on the mend.” I like the idea that you’re not just repairing your clothes but you’re also helping yourself, you’re focusing and coming into your body while you work, and relaxing, which all help to relieve symptoms of stress and anxiety – that in itself can almost feel like a repair.

I use the word “upcycled” a lot in my work too, because I often work with items that exist and, despite being discarded, are in fine condition and so I add scrap patches onto them in order to re-design them. I find this gives them a new lease of life. Instead of throwing away perfectly good clothes you don’t like anymore, reworking them into new items can refresh them and bring a whole new love to the item.

How would you describe this body of work?

The work itself is an ode to weaving and embroidery, a representation of the marriage of two traditional crafts, and a celebration of scrap fabrics, natural fibers, and damaged clothes. The woven fabrics are soft with a dreamy color palette whilst the scrap fabrics somewhat juxtapose this with their playful patches. This body of work was so fun to make and I feel that it really shows, the woven patches blend beautifully into the jumpers wool to create pops of colors on the surface. Not only do the pieces hold an appealing aesthetic but they serve a purpose and hold a message.

What is the inspiration behind it – where did it come from?

This body of work was created during a hard time for me and I used it as I intended others to, as a form of creative wellbeing. I allowed myself to let go, experiment, and play – something that I feel we lose as adults, but desperately need. The idea of repairing means putting in our time to preserve a memory or a feeling that an item holds. The damage itself is the story of us and the repair is the resilience we have built throughout our experiences. The mend does not put the item back to its original form but allows structure, support, and reinforcement into weaker areas of fabric. I felt that this was a beautiful metaphor for ourselves and how we bounce back from our hard times with lessons learned and stronger than before.

Throughout this project I researched creative well-being and was heavily inspired by Resilient Stitch by Claire Wellesley-Smith, the word resilient resonated with me so deeply that I began to look at clothes and people not as separated but as symbiotic. We are connected. We wear our clothes every day, they are our protection, we live in them and they hold us through every second. The idea that something that is so close to you can be discarded due to damage is heartbreaking. Through mending, not only do you have an outlet to create resilience in your clothes, but you also have a way of connecting with your body through your hands, bringing the focus back to yourself and away from the spiraling thoughts in your head. This was the greatest gift I could ever have given myself – an activity that not only holds sustainable values with a rich history but also something to build resilience and resistance to anxious thoughts through mindful mending. This is why I created a zine including information on creative and sustainable well-being as well as workshop proposals to promote these practices. I feel there is a real future for community-led creative well-being and sustainability will always be a collaborative effort.

Which repair techniques are you using and why?

I like to use a variety of techniques as different items and materials respond differently to different repairs. For tears in shirts or jeans, I use a scrap fabric patch secured with either hand or machine embroidery. I use hand darning or a “speedweve” darning loom for items like socks as I find it holds better, but can be quite time-consuming for bigger holes. This is where I had to find a solution as my goal was to be able to do repairs on a bigger scale for more people through my studio PATCH’D. Darning and speedweving is just weaving on a smaller scale which is where the idea to bring my woven fabrics and my previous work in making patches came together. I found that I could felt my lambswool woven patches over the holes on jumpers which was significantly quicker than the darning I had been doing and was just as effective! It meant that I could continue to weave and apply that skill to my mending, meaning I could fix more woolen jumpers than before in a shorter period of time.

The Repair Hub at Green Grads, London Design Festival

How did you learn the techniques you use in your work?

Hand darning came to me very naturally – it felt like something that I just intuitively knew and the same with the patching and running stitch. I had seen people on TikTok use a speedweve and, with my experience of weaving, I was able to pick that up quickly too. When it came to the feltin, I had only used an embellisher machine which does the same job but on a bigger scale. Using the embellisher was great as it meant I could mend all different fabrics with the woven patches, but hand-felting works best with wool.

How do your repairs change the function or story of the object?

What I love most about the repairs is that it tells us that the item has been lived in and the repair is a mark of this, a story of adventure and experience that has been lived through in the clothing item. I also feel that a patch can give us an opportunity to add a bit of ourselves and express something depending on the colors and materials we use which I quite enjoy.

How visible or invisible is the repair and why is that important?

My mends are always visible, I like that you can see that the item is cared for and cherished to the point of keeping it alive for longer through repair. And again, the idea of being able to express ourselves through our clothes is vital – what we are wearing is often the first thing people know about us. Mending is a perfect opportunity for self-expression whether it is through a patch or a darn, we get to choose and adapt how our clothes look. Adding a mend is also a way of making our clothes unique to us – no-one will have the exact same mend as you and that gives our clothes their own identity parallel to ours and I believe this increases our care and love for them. It is ours and no one will ever have this exact piece now it has been mended.

How have people reacted to this project or body of work?

I have been so fortunate to receive such positive feedback to my work, I have been told that the woven patches for mending are especially beautiful and unique, which is exactly what I wanted. People have found that it only adds more personality to the items and I have even had people ask if they can have patches on their clothes even if they don’t have a damaged item, which I am happy to do as it means they will cherish that item for longer. It’s made me feel so excited for the future potential of my work. After leaving university, it had been very difficult to be optimistic about my practice with all the uncertainty of what I was going to do. Green Grads gave me just the boost of confidence I needed in my work – talking to so many lovely creatives and celebrating my work with them really helped me to see just how wonderful the work I am doing is.

The Repair Hub at Green Grads, London Design Festival

How do you feel opinions towards mending and repair are changing?

After displaying my work at Green Grads and having such amazing feedback from so many people and opportunities come from it, I can’t help but believe that there is a big mending and repair community that I am about to step into. Not only are people looking more to mending and repair for sustainable reasons, but also financial reasons, with the cost of living crisis, and as a counter to the despair and disconnection people experienced during the pandemic. The aesthetic of mending is also on the rise alongside “DIY fashion,” and I truly believe it has emerged from these times of stress into a viable alternative that helps to relieve the stress itself.

What do you think the future holds for repair?

I believe repair will always be essential. I think, with time, there will be a greater push for consumer education when it comes to sustainability and, with the vast access to information the younger generations have, they will have more opportunities to learn this quicker than we did before. Community and collaboration are key to this movement – supporting one another and learning from one another will take us a long way. I am aware that social media has its downsides, but I think, used in the right way, it can create a strong sense of community between like-minded people and offer a great way to share techniques and practices, making them super accessible. I am also led to believe that sustainability is at the forefront of so many people’s minds now, especially in the creative sector, so I think mending and repair not only has a rich history, but a richer future – perhaps in ways we have not explored or know yet, and to me that’s the most exciting part!

This post contains affiliate links, so if you make a purchase from an affiliate link, we earn a commission. Thanks for supporting Design Milk!

Katie Treggiden is a purpose-driven journalist, author and, podcaster championing a circular approach to design – because Planet Earth needs better stories. She is also the founder and director of Making Design Circular, a program and membership community for designer-makers who want to join the circular economy. With 20 years’ experience in the creative industries, she regularly contributes to publications such as The Guardian, Crafts Magazine and Monocle24 – as well as being Editor at Large for Design Milk. She is currently exploring the question ‘can craft save the world?’ through an emerging body of work that includes her fifth book, Wasted: When Trash Becomes Treasure (Ludion, 2020), and a podcast, Circular with Katie Treggiden.

When Bowers & Wilkins released the original Zeppelin back in 2007, streaming audio was stilling getting a foothold in the mainstream. Back then many of us were still carrying around gigabytes of songs stored on iPods and other MP3 players, and to enjoy those songs sans headphones, dock-based speakers were still commonplace. Which all made industrial designer Morten Warren and his team at Native’s sleek oblong Zeppelin a memorable design. Minimalist and sculptural, the B&W looked and sounded premium compared to smaller tinny-sounding competitors. With time the B&W would jettison the docking mechanism, streamlining Warren’s design into a fully wireless speaker across numerous incarnations, culminating in perhaps its most aerodynamically spirited iteration in the form of the Bowers & Wilkins and McLaren Automotive’s Zeppelin McLaren Edition.

McLaren has built its reputation building very fast supercars that even look like they’re accelerating while parked. Sculpted to shear the air with carbon fiber bodywork, titanium, and other material applications serving the purpose of agile performance, the automotive brand’s aesthetic is unapologetically and purposefully aggressive, inside and out. McLaren supercars are if anything, distinctive.

While not as boldly sinuous, the Zeppelin McLaren Edition takes on a few McLaren-inspired details to impart an aesthetic nod to the automotive brand in this Brit-to-Brit partnership. Pairing the Zeppelin’s high-performance wireless sound with conspicuous touches, the special edition distinguishes itself most prominently with a Galvanic Grey body and Papaya Orange stand and button controls. 

The vibrant Papaya Orange embellishing this special edition is a reference to the hue McLaren founder Bruce McLaren chose to adorn his earliest racing cars with.

Being limited to a styling upgrade, the rest of the Zeppelin McLaren Edition retains the same double dome tweeters, FST midrange drivers + subwoofer 24-bit high-resolution stereo sound system found in the standard Zeppelin, adding a $100 premium for this distinct edition. Like its standard counterpart, this the McLaren Edition Zeppelin can stream from Apple AirPlay 2, Bluetooth aptX Adaptive, and Spotify Connect, alongside directly from the Bowers & Wilkins Music app.

The $899 Zeppelin McLaren Edition, which joins the similarly styled Px8 McLaren Edition over-ear noise canceling headphones, is available at bowerswilkins.com for $899.

This post contains affiliate links, so if you make a purchase from an affiliate link, we earn a commission. Thanks for supporting Design Milk!

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.

Bucking the idiom “too many cooks in the kitchen,” Café Mars represents the richness achieved when architecture marinates in collaborative effort across distinct disciplines. The founders and co-chefs, Jorge Olarte and Paul D’Avino, enlisted New York-based Format Architecture to help them deliver an experience in service to their culinary narrative, Italian-American heritage, and the Gowanus neighborhood – with a dash of Format’s signature geometry. Working closely together, the eatery’s design is made as bright as its featured flavors.

“We had many conversations with the chefs in the early stages of the project about food and memory, and the multi-sensory experience that is integral to a great meal,” the firm explains. “Through these conversations, inspiration pulled from food was less direct, but mindfulness to how a visitor would smell, touch, taste, and hear in the space, let alone what they see, was very important to materiality and adjacencies throughout the project.”

A memorable experience begins with the pasta die door handle sourced from D. Malardi & Sons, a local, third-generation and family-run macaroni die manufacturer. The detail serves to add charm to the new space while paying homage to the building’s history as a pasta factory and Italian grocery. The restaurant’s significance is also tied to the neighborhood by its location across from the first residence of D’Avino’s great-grandfather – an emigrant from Campania, Italy in 1901.

“At the beginning of the project, the chefs came to us with a large scrapbook of inspiration imagery from a broad array of disparate sources: Amalfi Coast umbrellas, neon signage from old Italian restaurants, film stills from Pee Wee’s Playhouse and Beetlejuice, Hobbit-holes, stained glass booth dividers in Chicago and New York dive bars,” the firm adds. “As we were finalizing the color palette for elements in the space, and researching fabrics and upholstery that would be appropriate for the seating and booths, the chefs came to us and said, ‘think Sesame Street,’ and very specifically referred to each hue derived from the main characters.”

Asymmetrical yet balanced – and punchy – guests are pulled into a bright white front dining room that creates a long line of continuation through the length of the corner space. Flanking the left are six booths with custom Format yellow and white bench seatings illuminated by Andrew Neyer’s globe pendants. The original brick wall is made a backdrop at every table through colorfully backlit viewing portals punched out from an oblong yellow panel.

Opposite is the central bar followed by the adjacent open kitchen space, both separated by white oak paneled archways. The L-shaped, light gray counter area corresponds to a variety of curves and ribbed details from across the room while the dual tiered dining surface ensures a sense of privacy and comfort. Beyond is the cobalt blue bar outlined by LED lights. Studio Apotroes’ custom Phobos Dining Chairs, with hot pink zig-zag legs, and Grand Rapids Reece Chairs with white detailing are placed around the bar with a staccato rhythm.

A visual rollercoaster continues as patrons venture to the Blue Dining Room at the restaurant’s rear and are greeted with a shift in materiality – generous fenestration, exposed brick, and white hexagon floor tiles. The upholstered cobalt blue banquette seating to the left is another Format-designed original and balanced by more Grand Rapids chairs, this time detailed in blue. MushLume pendants made of mycelium with hot pink wire accents hang above bespoke Todd Higuchi tables with curvy edges adding to unrelenting cheerfulness.

But architects weren’t the only creative forces brought in to realize this project. Artist Massimo Mongiardo was tasked to create a fresh visual identity, which included an original typeface, hand-painted pasta illustrations to adorn the entire restaurant, and neon signage. “Ultimately, the chefs had close ties with many local artisans and friends that they wanted to bring into the project directly, so this framework was really helpful for them to make sure everything felt cohesive and complementary,” the firm continues. “The earnest playfulness of this is indicative of the whimsy and joy that underscored the entire design collaboration with the chefs, and ultimately is embedded in the character of the space throughout.”

Photography by Nick Glimenakis.

This post contains affiliate links, so if you make a purchase from an affiliate link, we earn a commission. Thanks for supporting Design Milk!

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.

Swedish audio-visual synthesizer maestro Love Hultén is back at it again, this time designing and assembling a “beast” of a synth titled the ATOM-IC. The custom instrument combines a Syntrx2, LXR-02, and Fusion Delay from Erica Synths with a Moog Theremini, Arturia Keystep, T-Rex Replicator, and Befaco Spring reverb into an integrated mean green machine embellished with all the tactile and visual bells and whistles the Gothenburg designer and woodworker has become renown for.

The 1-of-1 made-to-order creation designed for an unnamed client exhibits Love Hultén’s woodworking cabinetry skills in full (if you’re curious, Hultén’s commissioned client roster includes musicians A$AP Rocky, Eminem, and Danger Mouse to name a few).

A subtle bit of the wood’s grain is visible seeping through the Hulk green stain washed across the angled keyboard + synth contraption, similar to the designer’s past cityscape-skyline-as-synth, the Doodlestation.

The synth design is further enhanced by the designer’s keen eye for interpreting the graphical user interface into a tactile experience tempting experimentation.

Alongside the ATOM-IC’s extensive layout of dial, switch and button controls, the inclusion of an oscilloscope and LED matrix both add a visual element, representing the aural output into “dancing” green oscillations of lines with a light show of blinking colorful LEDs into the designer’s signature retro-futuristic sci-fi vibe.

Watch the ATOM-IC in action below:

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.

The Nawabari Collection, a collaboration between BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and BoConcept is an exploration of transforming shared spaces and bringing people together. The design was helmed by Partner and Head of BIG Products, Jakob Lange, who pulled inspiration from the Japanese art form of forging close bonds through binding with ropes. In Japanese, “nawa” means rope, and the term “nawabari” translates to stretching rope.

“When starting out with this collection, we were looking for a new way of expressing furniture,” said Lange. “We were interested in the forms that are created when a material is bound with rope. The result is these sculptural organic shapes that become the core of this furniture family.”

The Nawabari Collection includes two sofas, an armchair, two coffee tables, and two pouffes. The furniture pieces can be used individually or grouped together to create a standalone area. BIG loves exploring the intersection between work, life, and play in their work, meaning these pieces are as show-stopping in a hotel lobby as they are in a residential home or workspace.

You can even customize the Nawabari Collection to meet the needs of individual projects, including being upholstered in any of BoConcept’s fabric offerings or Gabriel’s wool-effect Blend fabric in six colors. Blend fabric carries the EU Ecolabel and is certified in accordance with STANDARD 100 by OEKO-TEX®, meaning everything has been tested for harmful substances. The Nawabari Collection in Blend fabric is also Greenguard certified, ensuring the furniture has low-emitting chemicals and a low impact on indoor air quality.

Bjarke Ingels, BIG

Jakob Lange, BIG

To learn more about the Nawabari Collection, visit boconcept.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.

If you even remotely keep tabs on sneaker trends, it’s near impossible to ignore a certain segment of kicks have taken a hard left into the realm of the surreal, with a succession of newer designs continuing to push the bounds of plausibility (and maybe in that pursuit, sacrificing comfort). Conversely, with the release of this absolutely bonkers gaming PC the same can now be said about PC computer design. Behold, Sneaker X, a real working gaming computer so convincing, you’d be tempted to try to slip it on.

Sneaker X designer JMDF was originally awarded the Best Art Direction at the Case Mod World Series after turning his sketches into a working IRL prototype. Inspired by sneakers from Nike, adidas, and Balenciaga, PC gaming manufacturer Cool Master took notice and announced they would eventually help turn the prototype into a real and purchasable machine. And now that day has (nearly) arrived with the announcement of availability and two model pricing.

Seemingly all of the wildly over-the-top details have been retained from JMDF’s original head-turning design by Cool Master: Gundam-styled angular chonk, luminescent LED color lights strewn across the silhouette, alongside the application of liberal perforations mimicking real sneakers that also effectively help to cool the internal PC component just as they would the feet. Additional heat-combatting measures are hidden from view, with a 360mm AIO liquid cooling system stationed near the midsole.

The sum of the design is unapologetically audacious and stands as the complete opposite of the minimalist modern cases designed to complement the room rather than tread upon it aesthetically.

For those willing to part with $3,800 for a liquid-cooled sneaker specced out to deliver high frame rate performance powered by an i7-13700K CPU and RTX 4070 Ti graphics card should venture over to cmodx.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.