Small Spaces

Monsa: Modular Micro Apartments

Monsa: Best Modular Micro Apartments 

Yamabahari | "Cardinalis" Blanket

Bulgarian journalist and entrepreneur Konstantin Vulkov and his wife, Silviya, started Yamabahari (yama means "mountain" in Japanese and bahari translates to "sea" in Swahili) to create cozy products for summer and winter. The brand's latest offering is the Cardinalis Blanket (130 x 190 cm), which is made from 100% New Zealand wool. It features an original design by the Bulgarian artist Veliko Marinchevski.

The City of New York x ONLY NY | F/W 2015 "NYC Collection"

ONLY NY linked up with The City of New York on a range of apparel and accessories (tees, totes, caps, skateboard decks, etc.) for fall. Available online November 19. 

Kitoko Studio | Maid's Room Renovation

While you're on the topic of cleverly designed, tiny European living spaces, Kitoko Studio's 2014 overhaul of an 86-square-foot (8-square-meter) Parisian maid's room deserves to be mentioned. 

The upper floors of the beautiful Haussman buildings usually accommodated the servants of the people living below and tended to be quite small. In the case of the private residence pictured here, the family wanted to convert the former garret to an independent living space for their au pair. The architects at Kitoko Studio were drawn to the idea of a multifunctional Swiss Army knife; thus, they constructed a large cabinet into which one can enter (for access to bed and bathroom) and from which storage and furnishings can be withdrawn. 

Click images to enlarge and/or watch the video for a more complete tour.

Designer Szymon Hanczar's 140-Square-Foot Apartment

You probably couldn't live in a 140-square-feet (13-square-meters) unless Szymon Hanczar helped you out. The Polish designer managed to fit everything that he needs into his minimal interior design--a lofted bed, kitchenette, bathroom, and storage spaces. 

Photos: DesignMilk

Ernest Packaging | Cardboard Chaos: Surf and Skate

Hats off to Ernest Packaging Solutions for creating a space for creativity, innovation, and all-around fun. Their "Cardboard Chaos" series, in conjunction with Signal Snowboards, is all about testing the limits of cardboard through a bunch of design challenges. In the videos below, a surfboard and skateboard are designed and built from paper before being field tested by pros like Tony Hawk. 

Sanford Shapes x Mac Premo | The Bucket Board

Mac Premo and Sanford Shapes collaborated to make skateboards out of discarded plastic buckets from construction sites. They and 14 other artists answered a challenge posed by the World Wildlife Fund - UK and Do The Green Thing to "take stuff that already exists, repurpose it, and give it new life."

Ellis Ericson x Alex Knost x Campbell Bros. Bonzers

Ellis and Alex have been working on boards with Malcolm and Duncan over the last several years. Here's a little of what that collaboration looks like.

Bob Biggs x Swans | Album Art for "To Be Kind"

Swans just released six images from their upcoming album, To Be Kind, which is due out on May 13. The art is by Bob Biggs, a painter and the founder of Slash Records. Michael Gira, frontman of Swans, offered the following comments about how the art came to be featured in the album:

I first met Bob Biggs in Los Angeles in 1976/77, through friends in the so-called punk scene there. He was a conceptual artist, but like everyone else with a brain, he was enthralled with the sudden and concussive events endemic to the rise of the beautifully scabrous punk explosion at the time. He was “outside” of it (as was I, in retrospect), but also in it, and had a sardonic view of it simultaneously. I distinctly remember him arriving at the infamous (genesis site of LA Punk) Masque Club, with a Semi Truck bearing a a fully grown, mucous-dripping cow, and leading it down a ramp into the club, where it ambled about, shat, and was then led out. I’m not certain what this was supposed to actually mean, but it was a delightful event, nevertheless.

Later, I was at the house of a friend (and a friend of Bob’s), and I noticed an unfathomable image on the wall. It was a pastel of one of the baby images we are now using as the art for the new Swans album. An uncanny visual cipher, and it stuck with me, all these years... I look at Bob’s baby images as something like the Mona Lisa—utterly inscrutable, but ACHING to reach up to the surface. Or like one of Jasper Johns’ flag paintings—I just can’t figure them out, but they keep calling me back.



I recall asking Bob in 1981 or so if I could use one of those baby images for a record, and he said, definitively, NO.

But those images have remained in the back of my head since then, always nagging. It seems they’re always calling me, calling, calling...


I’m delighted that these images, finally with Bob’s consent, can now act as innocent, but implacable sentinels for the music of Swans, after all these years.

.. God Bless Bob Biggs...



via Pitchfork.

Joe Doucet | "Iota" Playing Cards

You most definitely do not like playing cards; however, you might want to be dealt in to a hand using designer Joe Doucet's minimalist "Iota" deck.  Play on, players.

The Izola Travel Cup

New York's Izola is a purveyor of "whimsical objects with a masculine sense of antiquity," and after you spend a few minutes browsing their online shop, you'll realize you couldn't have summed it up better. The brand's latest offering is a series of stainless steel collapsible travel cups.