Category: Home
09. Individual Treehouses
It’s not a tree cabin. It’s a luxurious tree house! Like, say, a boat with a sunroof, where one can play and sleep. Or like a walnut in a walnut tree, where a whole family can spend the night. Build in trees in undamaging ways. A full nature promise of adventure for the kids, a retreat for the adults, a romantic hideaway for lovers. Simplicity and luxurious living get more and more together.
05. Daylight Revisited
Recently Philips introduced the Daylight Concept Active Glass at their Simplicity event, here in New York. The unit transforms an entire wall into an interactive multi functional light screen. Although it will take at least 8 years before it hits the market it gives us a glimpse of what is coming. The interactive wall gives you total control on incoming light; for example, you can block out noise, change the lightning and even add foliage.
12. Artek 2nd Cycle
Artek, a high-end iconic Finnish manufacturer of furniture goes to flea markets and the internet to buy back its own vintage products from consumers. They fixed the products only when they were broken. A coded RFID tag is put at the bottom of the used product and then it is sold again as Second Cycle Artek. On the RFID tag the particular item’s history is recorded, sometimes dating back to the 1930’s. New owners can check this information by mobile phone or internet. They can also upload their own stories. And become part of the story itself, forever.
Mushroom gifts
Sven: The company Fungiflower gives you a very original Valentine’s gift. In stead of giving someone some roses, you give him/her some mushrooms. With a nice slogan: ‘You are my champion’, you’ll probably give the most creative Valentine gift.
The creator says:” The mushroom grows and so does our love”. Wel that sure is sweet. A very nice way to break with the usual Valentine gifts. Maybe this will be big.
Life on your Wall
Joni van der laan: The Trend of coming together already exists, coming together on a wall is new. A picture, a movie ticket, a card of only an earring, everything has a history of a great story. It is hard to get everyone in one room and tell story’s and laugh about it. Put everything on a wall and it is always around you and it tells a story on is own. I think it has a future because everything in this world is going faster and faster and coming together is not easy, but to have a wall with everyone and everything from your life is always there. So put your live an your wall and you are never alone!
Le Clochard
Rose Z.: A lot of people want to do something good for the world and just donating some money doesn’t give the satisfaction a lot of us seek. Peggy van Neer and Erik van Loo must have had the same thought. They developed something that was fun and could help: Le Clochard.
‘Le Clochard’ is a bedcover designed like a carton box. 40 % off the profit goes to a charity that helps kids who are homeless and actually sleep under carton boxes, on the street. This charity helps these children and builds youth pensions in large cities in Holland, like Amsterdam.
More and more you hear of individuals who set up charity events, create awareness for problems big ánd small and just do good. People just want to create a better world. The globalisation and internet helps these people to be heard and work for their cause.
Water Biosphere
Rik Groenland: These glass bowls are little biospheres that you can put in your livingroom. In these concealed bowls we find a piece of seaweed, shrimps and sand on the bottom. When put into the sun photosynthesis will provide the shrimp with the oxygen they need. The shrimp on the other hand will keep the bowl clean from any algae. So with these biospheres you will have your own piece of the ocean right there in your livingroom!
Bullet Proof Table
Serena Tieland: Truly useful product - experience economy
This is an indestructible table, that can resist anything. A very nice must-have piece of furniture because you do not have to be afraid that someone or something ruins your table. Very useful and enriching. You can even shoot this table with a gun, and still put your glass on it! These luxury products represent more than the basic needs in life, which are surely a thing of the last century. People are making more money, less people live in poor circumstances and people are finding it more and more interesting to get so-called ‘gadgets’ in their livingroom.
Philips wake-up light
Lodewijk: This is one of my favourite things, the Philips wake-up light. It recreates a morning sunrise in your room every morning about thirty minutes before you wake up the lamp in the alarm clock starts to glow. A few minutes later birds start chirping. The lamp starts to shine brighter and brighter and the birds start chirping louder and more often. It wakes you up really slow and really pleasant. I am telling you, I couldn’t live without it anymore.
Mooi voor Thuis
Sonja Koeman: The owners of the art gallery ‘Mooi voor thuis’ in Amsterdam are taking the experience economy to a whole new level. They are actually living in their own shop.
‘Mooi voor thuis’ (which means beautiful things for your home) is an art gallery which exhibits different kinds of artifacts while the owners are living in their own gallery.
They have made it a real home with a kitchen, living room and their bedroom downstairs. Customers and others who are interested can see the art in their home/gallery which will enable them to get an idea of how the pieces of art will look in their home.
You can have a seat in a very comfortable chair (also on exhibit and for sale) and have a drink while you take a look at the different art pieces. This way the customers ‘experience’ the works of art and also the gallery owners ‘experience’ their way of making a living.
If you want to see for yourself you can make an appointment with them, check out their website http://www.mooivoorthuis.nl
03. Binge Chilling
We’ve all heard of binging. Binge drinking. Binge eating. Binge shopping. The term is generally associated with overindulgence and has a negative connotation, but it isn’t always a bad thing. Introducing “binge chilling”: using one’s personal time in the most relaxed of manners desired, lazing about and re-enacting those post-exam college days by pretending all the stress is finally gone … until Monday, that is. We live in a technologically driven, always-on, always-connected society, and people who expend 110 percent during the week are finding new ways to decompress on the weekends. Today’s younger demographic in particular is inclined to relax by doing whatever they want for as long as they want, without guilt, whether it’s watching 24 back-to-back episodes of 24, playing virtual tennis on Nintendo’s Wii or updating profiles and catching up with friends on Facebook for hours on end.
Habitat
Joris de van der Schueren:
Habitat, a furniture and home accessories store, and specifically for their Very Important Products line (VIP). Every year the chain features ten or so products designed by famous people. These people vary from those associated with good design (architects: Jean Nouvel, fashion designers: Christian Lacroix, photographers: Helena Christensen, designers: Marcel Wanders) to recording artists and celebrities (Ewan McGregor, Daft Punk, Deepak Chopra).
Zara Home
Manuel Rodríguez Guzmán, Portugal/Spain:
Supported by the success of its women-fashion business, the Inditex group launched into the market the Zara Home concept five years ago. This new business share with the fashion one some of the key success points of Inditex: cool items and elegance at affordable prices, rotation of stocks in order to provide to the new generation customers with new goods in shorts periods of time, most items are supported by the coolest trends of the most innovative designers …
The Zara Home idea is to provide a new concept for furniture retail by considering the shopping fact as an experience where you can find what you need, and like, at affordable prices. The goods that you can find in Zara Home are much less functional than Ikea. Its success is to position as a cool, neat retailer providing the latest trends in the top furniture shops at much lower prices.
Cross-bred Innovation
Javier Hortelano de la Lastra, Spain/Portugal: The concept is combining dissimilar products to achieve convenient and useful day to day products.
Examples are a stylish radio-toaster, the fridge-TV, a sneaker-iPod for joggers…