Sweden - World's Design Capital

Hi all,

We totally mean it...Yes we strongly think Sweden is the world's design capital for the unique and most innovative design ideas that emerge out of this country,be it a multi-million dollar company, or a design firm, or a the Swedish government ventures or just the homes in the country... everything is design inspiring there!! Newness, variety concepts, and attractive themes, everything seem like they belong there. This week, we are presenting the world's best designed tube/underground rail/subway stations at Stockholm. 

The pictures say a millions words about the quality of top notch design and moreover the wonderful art that went inside a metro station..this is otherwise called the world's longest art galleries underground. 

This post will tour you around the stations through pictures, however we would like to present the story of the making of this wonderful work in future posts.

While this is just a glimpse of Art Odyssey in the stations, we will bring in more. 

[Photo Courtesy: TwistedSifter]

Keep Visiting

 J & R

IKEA Inspired

Hi

We know many of are well aware of world's largest furniture retail IKEA. Its well known fact that IKEA has zillions of fans across the world. The simple and smart engineering is the key to IKEA's success. No item I have seen in this brand is complicated, heavy or silly. And assembling pieces using their manuals can be great fun. Shopping experience in IKEA itself is wonderful. We loved the store and often made visits just to bring back more and more stuff. While we moved back to India from London, we brought in some of our favourite IKEA collection with us. We always missed IKEA but on hearing the news that it will  soon be launched in India, we are so excited.

Today we wanted to introduce some beautiful homes which have been totally furnished with IKEA stuff. We are sure you will be amazed to the aesthetics that these range of furniture and furnishings bring in.

The Bedroom and cabinet shelf and the lamps(floor mount & hanging) and the chairs etc., are from IKEA. The hanging lamps from IKEA are our personal favourite and we own one too. 

This space is one room which has all, living, dining, bedding, cooking and working areas in one. IKEA's range of white colour cabinetry and furniture brought in brightness and so much space to this one room home.

Kids room are no exception. The baskets, wall frames, wall prints, window drapes are all in their range including the cute little stuffed toys. We kinda always loved that cute stuffed toys they offers for just 1-2£. 

The red stool, long mirror, the wall paper, and the orange throw shall all come for minimal price yet look very designer type.

The picture speaks it all as you see the modular kitchen including the utensils and accessories and the dining table altogether are part of their range. The red and white combo of modular kitchens is a hit in UK market. 

The whole setup you see here is one type of classy modern kitchen stuff. The utensils, we should say are one of its kind, with very fine quality and unique look.

This kitchen is another example of white modular kitchens famous in European countries. In India with the humid and tropical climate, its quite a task to maintain the whiteness but there are good choice of colours too.

The sofa and frames go very well with each other including the bolster cushions. 

Another outdoor dining table with unique design and very simple in look.

The play of colours here briefs you what kinda colour range and prints can they offer.

This post might seem like an IKEA commercial blog ad, we just wanted to share our lovely obsession. In fact, the ads are also very unique too. If you want to taste some Swedish food, do visit the store. Hope you all have got a feel for this wonderful brand. Concluding, we want to add one more vital point why this brand is such a big hit, that its price range is very affordable and quite tempting. 

Keep Visiting

J & R

Sunday Intro: Thomas Heatherwick's UK Pavilion

Hi

We have been featuring the best designed spaces under our Tuesday Tour segment, now on we will feature an Architect/Engineer/Designer's best work under the Sunday Intro segment. 

As part of the 1st intro, we chose the famous English designer, Thomas Heatherwick, the mastermind behind the London Cauldron stadium. While the Cauldron stadium brought in more fans for his work, we personally admire the UK Pavillion done by this ace designer studio at World Expo-2010, Shanghai, China. 

Considered as the one of its kind expo which features themed pavilions by different countries in the world which are done to represent their technology, culture and advancements, Heatherwick studio represented UK in the year 2010.

The pavilion itself sits on a crumpled landscape like enclosed in a wrapping paper. The surfaces of the pavilion were inclined, giving an amphitheatre atmosphere, with grey turf.

The Heatherwick studio's focus on the sustainable aspects is what we think is the commendable and contemporary thought for the theme "better cities, better life". 

With the building's façade representing the look of the grass, the building took its name as the Seed Cathedral with 15m hieght, the surface with silvery hairs consisting of 60,000 identical rods of clear acrylic, each 7.5m long which extend through the walls and lift up into the air. 

Using the concepts of the seeds from the seed conserving society as seen at Kew gardens botanical gardens, the building used 250,000 seeds cast into the glassy tips of these hairs. 

The daylight lights up the glass and the seeds inside while the light sources illuminate the box in the nights. 

The amount of detail and the concept to make it a seed cathedral connecting the modern day technology to the nature is what interest and amuses us in this design. The challenge to work this out in a constrained budget is definitely a daunting task. While the design won a gold medal, the pavilion had about 8 mi visitors which make it one of the top in tourist attractions of UK. 

While there many other marvels to his credit, we cannot stop admiring this one. Go for a video tour here.

Cheers

J & R