CURIOUSER & CURIOUSER!

A chair inspired by a cloud, a small cabinet shaped like a cartoonish donkey’s head, and a trompe l’oeil carpet that gives the impression of standing in a courtyard, looking up towards the sky. Sonia Kolesnikov-jessop rounds up a few of the quirky design

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Luxury handmade rug manufacturer Illulian has collaborated with architect and designer Fabio Novembre to create a fantastic trompe l’oeil rug that gives the impression that you are looking up the soaring open atrium of a building, towards the sky. However, as you are actually looking down, the overall effect is slightly disorientating, making you feel like you are looking at a reflection.

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Matteo Cibic loves to play with anthropomorphic shapes, and his new Animagic collection transforms some of his beloved ceramic bestiary into small cabinets that mix humour, utility and luxury. Meanwhile, the designer continues to bring his Italian design flair to Indian craftsmanship, adding new pieces to his Vanilla Noir Collection for Scarlet Splendour. The geometric, monochromatic patterns are created using a bone-and-horn inlay technique with a special resin developed by Scarlet Splendour to replace ivory.

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Dutch designer Richard Hutten loves to bring a sense of playfulness and fun to his designs. Inspired by mammatus, the cellular pattern of pouches hanging underneath the base of clouds, typically associated with severe thunderstorms, Hutten created the Wolk Chair for Scarlet Splendour. Made from pure brass, the feel-good statement piece has been designed for both style and comfort, aiming to place you on cloud nine. Meanwhile, Hutten’s cactus-shaped drinks cabinet with 200 brass thorns marries quirky form with functionality, with shelves for bottles and glasses hidden neatly inside the aptly-named Oasis.

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Misuraemme’s Rialto collection of small tables is characterised by its unusual structure: two three-quarter circles for the top and base, which are joined by a perpendicular quadrant.

The design allows the coffee table to play a subtle complement to a sofa, while its stylish two-tone painted base and bevelled 12mm-thick glass top mean it can also be deployed as a standalone decorative piece.

Slovenian designer Nika Zupanc seeks to challenge the rational, sober and utilitarian by giving voice to the intuitive, eclectic and intimate, and so her new Strings Collection for Scarlet Splendour transforms “strings” of metal into furniture pieces that offer soft, elegant edges and translucency, yet remain versatile with spacious shelves. “The word ‘strings’ evokes a vision of lightness in our mind, be it the strings of a musical instrument or textile strings of everyday use. An elegant paradox emerges when strings are made of hard steel, and defined into cabinets and credenzas,” she says.

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The legs of Etro’s Ziggy Console recall the lightning bolts thrown by the Greek god Zeus, and the luminous theme is reinforced by the polished brass, which contrasts elegantly with the smoked frisé eucalyptus wood of the top. The overall design is embellished with two intertwined Es, recalling the Etro logo.

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To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, American artist Matthew Day Jackson has teamed up with Finnish design company Made by Choice and the Formica Group to create a new collection, Kolho. Inspired by images of the far side of the moon taken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009, Jackson recreates the lunar landscape on a tabletop through the use of bespoke steel press plates that produce a textured laminate that maps, to scale, the surface of the moon. Jackson’s interest in the 1969 exploit features regularly in his art practice, which addresses ideas about colonisation and human ambition. Incorporating this in utilitarian objects is somewhat poetic for Jackson, who sees it as connecting our everyday needs to our wildest dreams.

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A chair made of glass is already an intriguing proposition, but Nendo founder Oki Sato has pushed the capabilities of cast glass by allowing the liquid nature of molten glass to inform his design. Inspired by the ability of Venetian craftsmen to work with heated glass like children playing with clay, Sato worked with Wonderglass to create Melt, a new collection of furniture and tabletop objects with gravity dictating their final forms. By suspending hot glass sheets between steel pipes, they naturally fell into a U shape that serves as the base of the chair; this is contrasted by two flat panes of textured glass for the seat and back. The collection comprises a dozen pieces of furniture and objects exploring Sato’s concept.