Magazin

Who actually decided we should cover our roofs with tiles? How about a dune instead, one that surrounds the entire house, that you can even walk over – like the “Dune House” in the Portuguese town of Grândola.

How you get into the Salone Satellite as a young designer and all the things that can come of it.

The formula N = N sounds intriguing, as does the collaboration. But how did the whole thing work and what came out of it?

Nature offers a really great inspiration source. Finnish designer Antti Kotilainen has adopted the metamorphoses that shape nature for a chair collection in collaboration with Arper.

Does a comfortable armchair necessarily have to be big and heavy with thick padding nowadays? Benjamin Hubert asks questions, using them as a starting point to design not one, but two armchairs.

Can a mirror be anything more than a mirror? Tokujin Yoshioka responds to this question in the affirmative, and with a great deal of finesse at that.

We had thought it to be “ex oriente lux”. But “Yoko’s” charming light actually hails from the North.

Milan is definitely not just a matter of novelties. There are also defeats and losses to report. One prominent loss who takes his own irritation quite literally playfully is Nils Holger Moormann.

Mattiazzi is extending Konstantin Grcic’s Medici armchair to include a footstool and a table. Jasper Morrison has busied himself with a camping frame, while Sam Hecht has elected to remain upright.

It was at the latest with the premiere of “Houdini” that we realized that Stefan Diez is a magician. Now he has shown that he’s a master of card tricks too.

What do seating isles, a two-part bathing suit and an atoll have in common? Werner Aisslinger knows...

... or perhaps not? Cupboards protect objects from prying eyes, light and dust – unless they are designed by Front.

Did you know that Charles Eames took photos on his friend Billy Wilder’s movie sets? A current exhibition reveals his photographic work – and much more besides.

You can get stacking chairs two a penny. But now PearsonLloyd has developed the SixE for Howe. While it has four legs, it is in fact a combination of six “e”s.

In times shaped by globalized markets, offering high-quality even perfect products simply doesn’t make the grade. Robert Volhard posed six questions on the future of the Italian furniture sector to Claudio Luti, the new president of Cosmit and CEO of Kartell.

Gardenias, even the name has a special ring to it. In particular as the eponymous collection that Jaime Hayon designed for BD Barcelona offers more than just a touch of garden romanticism.

A chair, a table and a retrospective – anyone with an appreciation of Angelo Mangiarotti’s work will certainly get their money’s worth in Milan this year.

As part of the “Munich Creative Business Week” and accompanying the “mindscapes for design” exhibition, there was a fascinating debate on the extent to which information and communication technology are already permeating our lives and the influence they could have on design and architecture in the future.

Daniel Buren has been playing around with the boundaries of art since the 1960s, the same boundaries he himself moves in. Now he has switched up the playing field, taking Louis Vuitton models and staging them like pieces in his own game of chess.

Great architecture requires great courage on the part of the decision makers. The outcome of the competition to build the new campus for the “Frankfurt School of Finance and Management” provides a striking example of why this is so seldom the case here in Germany.

The noticeable trend at the ISH 2013: Under the sign of the transformation of the energy sector in Germany, technology is once again taking front seat, and not just in the energy sector, but in the bathroom, too. Yet there are various new designs all the same. And alongside wellness, the sector is also busy discovering health.

There is water flowing and circulating everywhere at the ISH fair! Which needs the right engineering. A slightly different tour of the trade fair in images.

Pastoe, the master of Minimalism, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Since its establishment, the Utrecht-born company and its furniture have become an integral part of Dutch lifestyle history. And now, Pastoe has been honored in an exhibition at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam organized by curator Anne van der Zwaag and design critic and author Gert Staal entitled “Like Pastoe, 100 years of design innovation”.

Good products alone are no longer a sure ticket to success in today’s market, and things are no different in the sanitary industry. They want their moment in the limelight too. In the two latest promotional videos produced by Meiré und Meiré for Dornbracht, information and sensuality go their own separate ways.

At this year’s imm cologne the “Featured Editions” exhibition, created in collaboration with Stylepark, formed an integral component of the new “Pure Editions” hall concept used to strengthen the trade fair’s position within the high-end segment, a concept that proved to be an instant success. Ten platforms dotted throughout the hall formed the basis of presentations by selected exhibitors. We documented a number of them on film and in interviews with the creative minds behind them.

A new addition to Spain’s Costa Tropical, the “Non Program Pavilion” is the brainchild of architectural firm Jesús Torres García, based on the design philosophy of the famous Oscar Niemeyer. Thanks to its expansive glass front the building blends wonderfully with the surrounding nature.

In the person of Makoto Azuma, haute couture has entered the world of floristry. Rather than accepting standardization and complying with market expectations, the artist prefers to indulge in the variety of shapes and colors found in nature.

He’s not really interested in skylights. But in the third part of our tour of the “BAU” trade fair in Munich, Amandus Sattler discovers that there are in fact some well-executed specimens out there, such as those developed in collaboration with Foster+Partners. He also finds out that you can’t tar all drainage systems with the same brush either, that no two types of paint are the same, and that “green PVC” is really quite an attractive option.

Her carpets and striped textiles are counted among the Bauhaus design icons, but there are very few who actually know the designer’s name. Now, an exhibition in Berlin will showcase Gertrud Arndt and her unusual works.

In the second half of our trip to the Munich trade fair BAU with Amandus Sattler, he discovers some well-designed stands, tells us what he thinks of sound insulation and why he is particularly fond of façades made of translucent glass and textile-based media façades.

Every two years the fair Frankfurt invites everyone to attend ISH. From 12th to 19th Marchapproximately 2,300 manufacturers will present the world's largest exhibition for bathroom design and building-services technology. An exhibitor schedule presents the most important manufacturers.

Anyone who likes taking a bath would in fact much rather be doing it in the great outdoors. So why should only bathroom technology be “green”? On the surface at least the bathroom is seeking to find a connection to the garden, lake and forest.

This year’s ISH in Frankfurt boasts a list of exhibitors nearing the 2,300 mark and over 250,000 square meters of exhibition space. To make planning your trip to the fair that little bit easier we’ve compiled all the most important information for you here.