Here’s a couple of new examples of automotive aesthetics inspiring furniture. Maybe if parking a car in the living room to admire is out of the question, one of these chairs might be a good substitute. The series above is from Laisr, a Switzerland based company created by bicycle designers Torgny Fjeldskaar and Javier Alberich. Their first project is called ch.air, a full carbon fibre chair made utilizing an innovative manufacturing process borrowed from the bicycle industry. The pair produced these special edition models finished with paintjobs inspired by classic race car graphics.

The Sprint stool from designer Jang Yoon caught [...]

Miss the chance to walk the show at Javits or take in the offsite events during the ICFF? Check out our photo gallery where we’ve collected all the stuff that caught our eye:
PSFK’s 2009 International Contemporary Furniture Fair Gallery
PSFK’s 2009 ICFF Offsite Events Gallery

Greypants is a side project from a group of architects based in Seattle. At the 2009 ICFF fair, they were showing off their impressive “Scrap Lights” – hanging lamps made out of salvaged corrugated cardboard. Contemporist has more photos of the lights here.
Greypants

Debuting earlier this year, Confluences, a modular seating collection by designer Philippe Nigro has been drawing a lot of attention and awards. Confluences picked up a Red Dot: “Best of the Best” award and Young & Design award at Milan. The puzzle-like seating elements made by Ligne Roset can be reconfigured in many ways. Wondering if Philippe researched the project by trying to fit sofas in a standard NYC studio apartment, we did a quick Q+A during the ICFF.
What was you motivation to design modular seating rather than a one piece sofa?
I wanted to offer a variety of compositions and [...]

Pratt Institute’s Industrial Design students recently exhibited their Design For A Dollar project at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair.  Students were asked to create a design spending no more than a dollar.  Some of the designs are listed below.
Sukmo Koo and Young Taek Oh‘s Metamorphosis a light shade was an exhibition highlight.  Created from recycled egg cartons the design was inspired by a “Mobius strip”.

Catherine Merrick’s Drip plate was created using a thrift store-bought plate and candle wax. After dripping wax onto the plate, Merrick then sandblasted uncovered areas, creating a unique design.

Steph Mantis’ morphed soap holder, ‘Dypt‘ was [...]

The Netherlands-based vanEsch booth wasn’t hard to miss at the show thanks to their gigantic Oclock positioned right up front. What we found interesting about the company though is the way they have targeted their products at a specific and often overlooked experience that every building or home has, the entrance. VanEsch believes that being well received gives one a sense of being immediately welcome. Their designers have looked at all the issues and needs an entrance must provide for and developed products that solve these problems with a unique sense of style.

The Maryland Institute College of Arts (MICA) booth at this years ICFF attracted a lot of attention primarily due to the clear and compelling presentation of the student work. A closer look though revealed really clever ideas. The work represented was the result of a collaboration of two programs at the school. The Environmental Design BFA program and the Graphic Design MFA program presented 2d and 3d prototypes of plausible ideas and products that could contribute to reducing energy consumption while simplifying and beautifying our lives.
We particularly liked the hydroponic garden system designed by Irena Dukhnevich. She proposes a series [...]

We’ve previously reported on the resurgence of vinyl record sales. Chris Adamick of Test Collective unveiled the must have furniture piece to compliment any record collector’s addiction.
Volume was designed to store all the albums, a turntable, and other equipment necessary to enjoying analog recorded music. It also has the unique feature of a series of slats in the top which albums can be dropped into for display. Chris told us he thinks one of the things that draws people to vinyl collecting is the large format sleeve artwork.
Vinyl records now represent an auditory and visual delicacy rather than an outdated [...]

After every International Contemporary Furniture Fair, we wonder if the name too narrowly describes what the show is about. Case in point, we noticed more bicycle designs featured this year than ever before.
NY-based Areaware dedicated a whole section of their booth to featuring pedal powered transportation. On display were the Vanmoof designed by Sjoerd Smit which has two integrated solar powered lights. The IF Mode by Mark Sanders is a commuter bike with single arm forks allowing the wheels to fold together. The Strida also by Mark Sanders folds to even a more compact size.
On the opposite end of folding [...]

A primary function of seating is to provide comfort. But some do it so well, long term use can be unhealthy. Hence the term couch potato. NY based ErgoErgo is looking at seating in an entirely different way. At ICFF they launched a new seating concept designed by Alan Heller which is part exercise ball, part stool. The ErgoErgo stool is designed to give users a gentle workout with the benefits of strengthening core muscles and relieving back pain. The company developed the idea to encourage wellness primarily for the millions of Americans who work at a desk all day [...]

Harlem-based Kikkerland Design has been producing unique objects since 1992. At this year’s ICFF, it wasn’t so much what they had displayed that was getting all the attention, but the display itself. Kikkerland purchased 3000 cans of Campbell’s soup from local NYC supermarkets and built their booth out of them. At the conclusion of the show on Tuesday afternoon, all the cans were stacked on pallets and donated to City Harvest, a nonprofit food rescue organization that picks up excess food from restaurants, caterers, cafeterias, and other suppliers, then delivers it to emergency food programs.

Jan Habraken from Holland designed the [...]

Of all the companies that exhibited at this year’s ICFF, we felt Toronto-based Hero represented a really compelling vision of where design is headed in the future. Their mission to create products that are accessible, functional, beautiful, affordable, and sustainable is printed on the the cover of their brochure. We’ve heard a lot of other people in design throw these words around lately. But we feel none have translated them into products that score as highly on each point as what Hero brought to the show.
The DR-1 Drying Rack can be used indoors or outside to dry your clothes as [...]

Last week we attended a discussion featuring hotelier André Balazs at his newest addition, The Standard NYC. From what we heard, André really understands hospitality and gave some examples of how he integrates public spaces into his hotels and why they are important.
First he defined a good hotel as one you can use without paying. While that may not include staying overnight for free, for André one of the most important parts of the Standard NYC is the public plaza in front of the hotel. This area which is adjacent to the hotel’s lounge and soon to open restaurant encourages [...]

At the recent Design Week show, we had time to speak to British-born, New Zealand based designer Chris Jackson about the stool he was showing in the ICFF section. Taking inspiration both from the sheer distance that New Zealand is from the rest of the world and a need to protect natural resources, Jackson has created a piece of furniture that is made from three identical pieces of metal that link together. The idea is that a factory that one day produces this will only need to produce one piece and therefore minimize both waste and the need for any [...]

The Takano HeartWorks Company from Japan didn’t have a flashy booth at the ICFF or a big sign. They didn’t even have press kits. Instead they let the power of good design of their products promote themselves. The company brought several of their innovative Carry-na walking assistance devices. The Carry-na is a recent winner of a Good Design Award by the Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization. While we hope you get a sense of how functional these are from the photos, we also want to say it is really cool to see in person. Product specialist Katsumi Takeno brought people [...]