Cleveland Art: Modern Vintage Recycled.
Beautifully Industrial.
Cleveland Art creates functional household, shop and hotel furniture from recycled vintage industrial surplus. It seamlessly fits both contemporary and traditional interiors, the combination between simple minimalistic shapes and work worn steel, wood and glass gives the furniture a complete immunity from time. They scream both modern and old simultaneously somehow without competing for which has the loudest voice.

The strange dual life these designs hold continues as you consider that they uncannily resemble minimalist sculptures fit for any art gallery and an old GYM bench or factory employee’s coat hook. This tandem existence is nothing short of genius.

I personally love these designs there is a strong masculinity which is perfect for a city apartment, and could work extremely well in contrasting against feminine designs. With the right use of these the designs you could create a perfect androgynous harmony in a space, or go all out masculine and have your space harder and grittier.

Adam Cornish Design
1st Place For The Herman Millar Asia Pacific – Yves Béhar Design Competition
This is the winning design for the Herman Millar Asia Pacific – Yves Béhar Design Competition; “Wooden Hammock” by Adam Cornish. The hammock is crafted from a single piece of plantation grown plywood; plantation grown wood is an alternative to logging native forests and holds green leanings. The piece is designed with ergonomics in mind, specifically the human spine, the idea is that the hammock embraces the user flexing to fit them exactly.

The simple elegant design follows some of the aesthetics of its bases, in that it resembles the backbone, though to me it also seems to have similarities to a segmented exoskeleton of a beetle or a shell. The strange and enigmatic form of the piece allows it to hold a contemporary aesthetic with consent to its peaceful and comfortable functionality. Given Cornish’s steering from the use of a conventional fabric, as seen in so many hammocks, "Wooden Hammock" is new, exciting and a contemporary piece of furniture, to me it doesn’t seem such a strange idea that this functional and beautiful design could be found inside as well as out.

After completing his mentoring session with established industrial designer Yves Béhar, the prize for first place at Herman Millar Asia Pacific – Yves Béhar Design Competition, Adam Cornish will be taking part in the 2011 Milan Furniture Fair.
USB Plug Concept
Lv Jianhua, He Dawei, Zhou Hanxiao, Xu Yao Designers of USB Plug Seat:Concept Design from Zhejiang University of Technology
A USB port or Universal Serial Bus port, has become one of the most frequently used ports for connection to a computer for data exchange, though it has also become a part of supplying devices with energy to keep internal batteries charged. For when a user is not using a computer for this function, their device would require a wall adaptor. So this could mean finding or buying a plug to USB adaptor, which can either be irritating or expensive. So the beauty of this highly intelligent design from Zhejiang University of Technology is that it removes that step completely making it possible to plug straight into the wall and have a device charging with ease.

For me the most exciting thing about this concept is that besides the use for charging device, which is for sure a great idea, is that the concept could be adapted to power devices whilst they were in use. This would make it possible to have USB powered technology wired straight into your home.

Just a speculation but with further development this idea could even result in the abilities to connect a computer into the system allowing you to control devices in any room or allowing devices to control your computer. This would be like a having a high tech home system without cables everywhere, which could allow a huge amount of possibilities. Though as I say it’s only speculation I am sure the idea is fraught with issues so I am going to leave it to these four geniuses’ from china to continue with their great concept and hopefully we will see these easy-to-use charging stations in interiors soon.
Lv Jianhua, He Dawei, Zhou Hanxiao and Xu Yao's design received an If concept award, for it's clever simplicity.

