Family and Holiday Time

It's Holiday time which means a lot of eating with a lot of family. We already did it with Thanksgiving and are about to do it again. So here are a few things that might help you. If it is your family coming over you might want this...

It is a foam injected, wood veneer table called Ilvolo by Alias. They use as few pieces of high quality veneer as they can, holding them all together in a mold, then inject foam into the middle to fill the entire cavity. The result is a pretty light, extremely durable table. They also have a matching chair called Laleggera that I have tested and it is pretty amazing. So it is light making it easy to rearrange the furniture to fit all the family in plus it can extend to fit even more since Aunt Fran decided to show up unannounced with her new beau.

Now, if it's your in-laws that are coming over, yet again, to take over your home, and yap about the family scandals (ahem...Aunt Fran), then maybe you need something like this from BuzziSpace...

All it needs now is a "Do Not Disturb" sign.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Keeping Miniature...

I know there are 5 year old girls out there that have very discerning architectural sense. The Victorian dollhouse with shingled roofs and dormers doesn't fit her taste and she wouldn't be caught dead in a plastic Barbie mansion even if it was owned by Architect Barbie.
No, what she needs is a sleek, modern toy house.
Douglas Rollins must have just such a girl because he has created toy houses with a modernist style that is sure to please. His company brinca dada has 4 modern dollhouses inspired by real houses designed by architects like Richard Neutra and Paul Rudolph. And you can outfit the homes with modern furniture packages as well. These houses are so cool, you might even let your son play with dolls.

Conferences Galore

Being in New Orleans, I am all too aware of the AIA Conference going on right now. Along with speakers and CEU's and tours, there is, of course, a products expo. There are hundreds of companies showing products and I'm sure plenty of them are very cool. But a lot of those booths are also going to tend toward the technical side of building. Don't get me wrong, I like flashing membranes as much as the next guy but it's just not really POW worthy.
So we're going to go to another "new" city on another coast for another product expo.
ICFF - International Contemporary Furniture Fair -  is taking place this weekend in New York City. As the name suggests there will be furniture makers and manufacturers from all over the world represented. But the fair will also show finishes and accessories as well. If you go to the website, there is a fun way to explore the different exhibitors. At the bottom of the home page there are four "Exhibitor Profile" links. Pick one. Pictures of products (most times) will show up along with a small description, a link to a website and a link to a contact. Then when you scroll down to the bottom of that page, you have four more profiles to choose from. You can get lost in it for a while so watch out. You can follow those links to the actual websites and look at other projects those exhibitors are working on as well.
You might find Jordi Mila and their smooth carved wood benches.

Or these tiles with embedded LEDs by Hyomi Kim (sorry, sight is in Japanese)

Andarina Designs and their glass rod light fixtures

Or these super fun partitions from Razortooth Design (check out all their stuff!)

Not your handy-man's Plywood

                   

RoHol is an Austrian veneer company. You can get simple veneers, you can get veneered panel product - plywoods, light building boards (veneer outside, foam or honeycomb inside), even a plywood for saunas with no formaldehyde to off gas when it heats up. But far cooler than that are these engineered plywoods. Different types of veneer pieces are laid out to create interesting designs then laminated onto the backing - MDF, OSB, chipboard, plywood... All the panels end up original and rather interesting. You can see a gallery of them here. The top two photos show furniture made out of these panels.
They also make "3D" veneer. It isn't 3D in the sense that anything is popping out at you or there is real depth to it like an Iconic panel might. It has slight depth because when the veneers are cut, the blade kind of undulates or hops over the surface. This gives a wavy figured look that plays off light. You can do this with normal veneers and get that effect in what they call Rough-/Wave veneers. Or, what you see in the bottom photo is a different technique where they layer different types of veneer and slice that. This way you get waves of the different colors or species. They call these 3D Veneers.
The website also sports a "Fancy Shop" where you are supposed to be able to find things made from there panels. Alas, there is nothing on that page except the interesting translation of what is supposed to be there.