I just came across these coverage of these furnitures from SaloneSatellite by Nathan Yong of Singapore-based Air Division – the 70cm High Bed and Every Sunday:

70cm High Bed

70 cm High Bed occupies a curious and unfamiliar height for beds. With the extra elevation, the bed becomes a mini levitating loft in the room, requiring one to perform the ritual of literally climbing into bed everyday. Here’s what he says:

I keep the height at 70cm because I find familiarity in this height. The height of a table is about 75 cm and I have always felt good standing and resting my bum on it to take a short rest while chatting with friends in the workplace or at home. And sometimes I sat at this table height and felt a sense of playfulness and casualness. Hence I think 70cm is a good height for getting “high”… so a height of 70cm is appropriately functional in this case.

Every Sunday

This was yet another intriguing furniture as familiar elements of the railing are stripped away and reattached onto this furniture – an island of simulated balcony –

Every Sunday was inspired by the balcony. I like the ideal of lazing around on a Sunday on a balcony. I remember when I was young, the balcony was the only place that was closest to the outdoors. As most houses in Singapore are flats, I had a good view of the city. There is a sense of liberation in that, and I used to throw paper planes down the storeys. This image stayed on, and when I wanted to design a sofa, I wanted to evoke a sense of openness when people sat on it. Most sofas kind of coop you inside…so my aim was to have an open sofa that encourages sitting, playing, sleeping, and working within the space of the sofa … so a balcony space sort of has those kinds of functions. Thus I do not think it will work on a smaller scale.

It is perhaps a reflection of Singapore’s life – the density, pace and general attitude that requires a borrowed metaphor on the furniture to restore just that bit much of spirituality into life itself; where designs (have to?) manifest themselves as tangible, transplanted cues to trigger off a certain familiarity.

It is perhaps also telling that these furniture are both little islands within the room. Within the boundaries of the rock-solid HDB flat walls where one can possibly seek to isolate oneself, and create/redefine his own island-space within the larger island (Singapore).

How lonely?

Full interview via moco loco

At the first sight of this ruler concept by designers Shay.Shafranek the thought of  ”this must be one of those ‘mesh-up-digital-and-physical-objects-experiment-again” sprang into my mind, almost in a knee-jerk reaction. But upon further consideration, it does have quite a lot of merit (if a little indulgent) in this combination.

This is a work done in conjunction with a PCB-manufacturing company. The most interesting bit, in my opinion, is the idea that with this digital-sensing modules lined up along the sides, you don’t have to line-up a “zero” point. You can start to pick and draw from anywhere, and the reading is automatically calculated from where your pencil first contacts the paper.

More advanced use of the idea also includes: adding distances (you can keep drawing and the ruler adds up the sum of the lengths); having units in different dimensions automatically (e.g. mm, inches);

Intuitive, simple, elegant solution that still retains the familiar analog ruler – you can be as advanced as you want with this ruler.

Great concept!