Shonquis Moreno

The up-and-coming designer duo Lanzavecchia+Wai sets out to make aging stylish.

An innovative London-based business breaks down the barriers to design entrepreneurship.

Young designers are finding ways to reinvent the country’s crafts for modern times.

A boldly modern cultural center invigorates an ailing Italian town—and could serve as a model for the entire country.

A Norwegian firm’s rigorously engineered mobility aids are designed to excite and empower disabled children.

A Brazilian program pairing designers and artisans produces covetable crafts—and a precious source of income.

Overhauling the heart of the crib gives babies a healthier place to sleep.

Sarah Gluck and Robyne Kassen design street furniture to get you moving.

Maija Louekari’s new designs for Marimekko are more intimate than the company’s famous patterns.

Mikael Hoilund is a busy man. An architect, he designed the Danish contingent’s ICFF booths this year and last; a furniture designer, he is half of studio Dnmark.dk, which created last year’s lauded Low seat. Hoilund’s latest work is the…

Drawing upon a German technique for molding 3-D veneers, Copenhagen-based Gubi has created a new member for its seating line: a lounge chair. Like the Gubi chair and stool, the lounger has a broad, clean, arcing shell, the lips of…

After a few minutes at one of the two Pratt Institute booths, I notice a box of chocolates. Designed by Linda Hsiao, the chocolates resemble bodily organs (nose, ear, heart, lungs, brain) and are dyed disturbingly organic colors. They’re somewhat…

This year seniors at Parsons School of Design were asked to develop designs by working with New York-based non-profit organizations. The results, like last year’s, were cleverly light-hearted in the face of troubled subjects. Working with the Metropolitan Transit Authority,…

This year, Cranbrook Academy of Art students of all disciplines were given the brief to develop “convivial tools”: objects that encourage others to live more creative, autonomous, and socially and environmentally constructive lives. The resulting work, which is highly conceptual,…

German-born, London-based designer Eva Menz is a romantic and idealist. Her 2004 collection includes two exquisite, modern chandeliers: “Free as a Bird” and “Money Can’t Buy Me Love.” “Money” turns the luxurious idea of a chandelier on its head, as…

MioCultureLab has followed up on its eco-friendly (if not entirely code-friendly) 3-D Tangent wallcovering with V2 wallpaper “tiles” made from 100% post- and pre-consumer wastepaper. This refined version is easy on the environment, the building code, and the eyes. The…

Lauded at last year’s ICFF for their louvered 6-Panel Screen, Brooklyn-based 3square design returns with an angular take on a chair built around negative space. Interested in the idea of a continuous loop, designer Michael Cannamela plays with expectations by…

Puerto Rican industrial designer Reynold Rodriguez has a gorgeous, innate sense of form. Like Athena sprouting from her father’s head, Rodriguez’s pieces seem to have burst from his mind fully formed (and well-dressed). With its radial corners, ovaloid sliding door,…

The diminutive molo booth is filled with only two objects, both designed by Canadians Stephanie Forsythe and Todd MacAllen. Soft Wall is a tall accordion of soft-white paper that, once flattened into an inch-thick wad, has now been extended about…

Commercial wallcovering manufacturer, Wolf-Gordon offers the latest in its innovative series of concept wallpaper collections (others include Linework by Laurinda Spear and Digital Nature by Karim Rashid) curated by creative director, Marybeth Shaw. “Touch” is a game that Amsterdam-based landscape…

Sounding vaguely obscene, Umbra’s motto this ICFF was “Get flocked!,” a message delivered to passers-by via a canary-yellow typeface. The catchphrase referred to how this year, Umbra’s usual products—lamps, chairs, tables, magazine racks—came coated with a synthetic film of either…

During the opening minutes of ICFF 2004, industrial designer Mark McKenna was jumping up and down upon a prototype of his new Frank chair. Though the two-pound chair is sutured together from four laser-cut sheets of steel, each less than…

Artists, architects, and industrial designers bring concept wall-coverings to Wolf-Gordon.

Emma Jeffs is interested in surfaces, materials, and printing techniques. These interests, which have evolved into custom window screens, room partitions, and installations, started with her introduction to photograms. Jeffs’s curtain-like designs are made of mesh fused together in a…

Joe Doucet has made a chair, ottoman, and table by building structure around form, creating a line of furniture that is “defined more by what is not there than by what is,” according to Doucet. Molded plywood faced with walnut…

Virginia Tech’s industrial design booth at this year’s fair may have been smaller than those of its peers and perhaps more earnest than clever. But its cerebral approach earned it the Best Design School category in the ICFF Awards on…

MIO principal Jaime Salm, 24, hails from Colombia and cares about the environment. Last month, he and MIO collaborators launched Tangent three-dimensional wallpaper, molded from an alloy of pre- and post-consumer recycled newspaper and cardboard. Ground up and molded into…

Photo-Furnishings takes Kate Osborn’s artwork and photography out of the purely aesthetic realm and into the functional. Using either the client’s photographic imagery or her own, Osborn reinvents window shades, wall murals, curtains, and bathroom tiles. Booth 1004 Company: Photo-Furnishings…

Designer Adam Simha of MKS studied physics at MIT. His solid but ribbon-like 7-12 lounge chair is named for the degree of tilt to the wide seat pan (seven degrees) and backrest (12 degrees beyond the right angle). The naturally…

Copenhagen-based Denmark.dk was inspired by old African seats to create the Low system. And it is just that: low to the ground. And laid-back. “Everyone gets very relaxed sitting on Low,” says Mikael Hoilund, who also designed the environment linking…

Several of Madeleine Rogers’ lampshades are named for English beach resorts: Leith, Hornsea, Selsey, and Winchelsea. The PVC shades hang from the ceiling or perch atop a stem as a table lamp. Leith is an abstract gray and black pattern…

The stackable, handmade, cylindrical boxes designed by Japanese architect Toshihiko Suzuki and crafted by Yoshimasa and Yoshinobu Shibata are exquisite examples of the country’s traditional craftwork (which is in danger of extinction for lack of younger practitioners). Made from Japanese…

While large companies like the U.S.-based Wolf-Gordon push the limits of industrially produced wallcoverings, it is the small independent artists like Tracy Kendall who are truly reinventing the form and doing so by hand. Last year’s “In the White Room”…

Bisazza’s big news is the opening of a New York City showroom at the end of June that will be designed by creative director Fabio Novembre. In the meantime, we must remain content with a new line of iridescent tiles…

If you missed the ICFF panel discussion on materials yesterday (May 17), stop by the Panelite booth to ogle their latest honeycomb wall panels. Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture recently used these shimmery skins for the façade of the…

Ori means “folded cloth” or blanket in Japanese, and Douglas Fanning’s new coffee table captures the essence of the fabric, while still retaining a sleek form. The creased corners of the table dip downward, leaving the middle section to fold…

Lolah designers have reinvented the water cooler, and we’re left wondering why it took someone so long. The singular design by Christopher Deam and Peter Stathis resembles a chic floor lamp, while the austerity of the handblown crystal reservoir and…