Armchair 401

Kari Virtanen is one of the pioneers who came to Fiskars in Finland in the early 1990s and transformed the small town into a design destination. Co-owner and CEO Johanna Vuorio told us how a carpentry workshop became a globally active furniture company during an interview at the headquarters there.

Daniel Rybakken's approach has been honoured early on with many awards. We spoke to the designer about how chairs are like human bodies, the relationship between art and design and what his father taught him about cars.

“A test bed for new ideas” was the overarching theme of the Stockholm Furniture Fair from February 6 to 10, 2024. The presentation was by no means as prosaic as the title, and in fact it quickly became clear: This ongoing experiment is starting to get playful.

As part of Milan Design Week 2023, also questions were asked about our future life and living – like on the part of the new centre for architecture and design Dropcity and the Swiss university ÉCAL. We present the pioneering projects to you.

From 18 to 23 April 2023, the Salone del Mobile.Milano will be held at the Fiera Milano Rho exhibition centre and include the Euroluce lighting biennale. Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi, founders of the research-based design studio Formafantasma, have created modular exhibition designs for it. Andrea Trimarchi explains the concept to us in an interview.

For three years, the Stockholm Furniture Fair had to take a break due to the pandemic. That both the organisers and the Scandinavian creatives and companies have integrated the current change into their work during this time became quite clear when the gates of Stockholmsmässan finally opened again from 7 to 11 February 2023.

Agrotourism is booming and bringing new forms of hotel business to light. The Berlin-based start-up Raus, for example, develops mobile, self-sufficient hotel rooms that it sets up in forests, meadows, fields and pastures. Architect Sigurd Larsen is responsible for the latest design.

Studio Ben Allen has painstakingly modernized a terraced Victorian house in London and added an extension to it, one that combines various different styles. “House Recast” recently received the 2021 “Don't Move, Improve” award.

Studio Besau-Marguerre has created an interior design concept for the workrooms of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe MK&G in Hamburg that combines different trends.

With their Douglas House in London’s West End, Note Design Studio has created a new feel-good place for flexible working. In the process, the Swedish collective has given this 1930s building a gentle nudge and a slight wave.

With the Shiroiya Hotel, Sou Fujimoto Architects have succeeded in producing a fascinating combination of an old building and a conversion, design, architecture and art. Michele de Lucchi, Jasper Morrison, Leandro Erlich and Sou Fujimoto have each designed one of the rooms.

The German Sustainability Award is the largest of its kind in Europe. Now for the first time it has also been conferred in the area of design.