Designer Cedric Ragot has designed an awesome range of multifunctional occasional tables that eschews the usual4 legs for panels of 3 with the main support structure highlighted in bright red. The design allows free-from arrangement. Turn them on their sides to create whole new spaces and configurations. If you don’t move them around, you could potentially used the red support leg as a cool asymmetrical book shelf.

Source: YankoDesign

Images from Yanko Design

The problem with plants is that they’re poor communicators. If something is wrong they don’t warn you until its too late and before you know it you have a room full of drooping leaves or worse, dead stumps. No wonder so few of us can claim we have a green thumb. Fortunately there’s a new invention by Junyi Heo that allows you’re plant to express its needs. Click on the image above to see a gallery of what I’m talking about.

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Inhabitat presents Saazs’ eco-friendly, light-emitting glass plates. Using planilum technology, these plates are the world’s first active light-emitting glass. Incorporated into shelves and tables, the technology provides beautiful, understated lighting for homes and offices.

Co-developed with Saint-Gobain Innovations, Saazs’ designs are the epitome of excellent eco-design: stunning forms that emerge from cutting-edge sustainable design thinking. Christian Biecher, Adrien Gardère and Arik Levy have produced special limited edition designs, with the ‘standard’ series designed by Tomas Erel.

While the unit itself is dazzling, it produces a soothing light that eliminates the need for lampshades, and is better for wellbeing. Environmental improvements are delivered in part by the non-toxic gas employed: a significant improvement over the mercury-infused gas of neon bulbs. The average lifespan of a plate is 50,000 hours, which translates to 20 years of domestic use. And when it does cease to function, 90% of the design can be recycled, as it’s essentially based on glass.

Currently, each 100W plate lights 40 square meters of space, an efficiency halfway between a conventional bulb and a neon light. The company is working to improve the light efficiency of the shelf, aiming to develop plates as effective as a neon light within 3 years, but without neon’s toxicity and somewhat unpleasant light quality and color.

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The use of concrete in home interiors has been popular for a number of years. It is often used as exposed concrete floors and counter tops. Exposed concrete is associated with minimalism and cold, yet Transparent House makes concrete warm, playful, and more trendy than concrete ever thought it could be. 

From Transparent House’s website:

“Transparent House Team presents its vision of the classic flooring material - concrete. We’ve created a way to refine a popular element of contemporary design such as polished concrete flooring. The design concept allows for application of any pattern to the surface either when pouring or afterwards the concrete has set. The fine floral ornament promotes the clean and simple character of the space while adding a touch of warm and live contrast and highlighting the cold austerity of the material.”

Russian nesting dolls (a.k.a. Matryoshka dolls) date back to 1890 and are traditionally associated with a fat russian woman. Well not anymore… check out these russian nesting dolls which offer a modern take on a traditional art form…

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by artist Trish Grantham (source)

By Fernando & Humberto Campana. You too can own this chair for only $75,000…

(source)