Other Stuff

Arckit Simplify Architectural Model Building Into Play

Arckit Simplify Architectural Model Building Into Play

It was a few weeks ago while wandering the halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center during the annual Dwell On Design show when we happened upon what we believe might become the next best gift to give to anyone in the architectural field…or any imaginative child with the makings of becoming the next Renzo Piano or Zaha Hadid.

Follow the Furniture City beer trail

Follow the Furniture City beer trail

There's a renaissance taking place in Grand Rapids, Mich. The Midwest’s office furniture-making capital, with its bustling downtown and revitalized surrounding neighborhoods, has leveraged an infusion of creative 20- and 30-somethings to become a focal point for healthcare, information technology, and more recently, craft beer production.

Grand Rapids: From 'Furniture City' to 'Beer City'

Grand Rapids: From 'Furniture City' to 'Beer City'

Grand Rapids was known as “Furniture City” for more than a century, and though much of that industry has now moved down to North Carolina, office furniture giants such as Steelcase, Haworth, and Herman Miller still have major operations in the area.

Readers of USA Today have voted Grand Rapids as “Best Beer Town,” beating out such better known craft competitors as Ashville, N.C.; Portland, Ore., and Denver. And in nationwide polls run by the Great American Beer Festival, the city has won the title of Beer City USA two years in a row.

The dozens of microbreweries and brewpubs here run the gamut from big, gleaming fortresses to hole-in-the-wall joints.

Via post-gazette.com >

WATCH: Six furniture designers play a game of musical chairs for fashion brand COS

WATCH: Six furniture designers play a game of musical chairs for fashion brand COS

Here’s a cute, fun way to combine fashion and furniture. COS, the H&M-owned minimalist retailer—and favorite to design-minded clotheshorses—invited six furniture designers to play a game of musical chairs in celebration of the holiday season and its accompanying party collection.

The short film by Amsterdam-based duo Lernert & Sander features Canadian designer Philippe Malouin, Seungji Mun, founder of Seoul and Copenhagen-based studio Mun, Dutch designer Marjan van Aubel, German product designer Tino Seubert, British furniture designer Lucy Kurrein, and Mette Hay, co-founder of Danish design house HAY, each with a chair that they’ve designed.

The Best Gifts For Architects (And Architecture Nerds)

The Best Gifts For Architects (And Architecture Nerds)

Architects are a fussy sort—a symptom of a job that involves minute tolerances, heady theory, and a culture that often takes things way too seriously. So shopping for an architect can be especially daunting. We've rounded up a handful of objects for the architect or architecture fan on your shopping list, from affordable stocking stuffers to fantasy gifts.

Via fastcodesign.com >

The presidential desk: A brief history

The presidential desk: A brief history

In art and in news media, there hasn’t been a president, real or pretend, who hasn’t been seen sitting behind the Resolute Desk—an 1880 gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes—looking stern or pensive or accomplished, depending, of course, on the moment. But the idea that the president has a desk and that desk is the president’s desk, though, is a relatively new one: Plenty of nineteenth-century Commanders in Chief brought furniture from elsewhere, while others oversaw White House redecorations that included custom furniture, which itself would be modified by later administrations.

The Resolute, too, was altered by a president, but it has become so ingrained in the national consciousness as the Place Where the President Sits that it is virtually impossible to imagine a future U.S. head of state making changes to its structure or appearance—and equally impossible to imagine one choosing to sit anywhere else.

Via curbed.com >

VIDEO: Why Buy a New Chair When You Can Tweak an Old One?

VIDEO: Why Buy a New Chair When You Can Tweak an Old One?

I needed a new desk chair–my old one was a bit...uncomfortable. I don't like buying new chairs because there are already enough of them in the world. Sometimes it's a matter of tweaking an object that already exists to make it fit your needs. My main goal was to make a comfortable chair. Car seats are exactly that, and there are plenty of them around...everywhere. But car seats are not desk chairs. They need some some tweaks—add a simple frame, some wheels and you have a buddy for life.

Via core77.com >