Products Collections and collaborations of note

SCP

Ishinomaki Laboratory was founded in 2011 as a community workshop making functional furniture to help those whose lives had been devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake, going on to market its products worldwide. SCP’s Ten Years Later project is celebrating its milestone first decade by asking designers such as Philippe Malouin and Matthew Hilton to create a raft of new products; this bird-bath by ceramicist Reiko Kaneko sits one of her terracotta bowls on a cross-shaped cedar base.

scp.co.uk

Isokon Plus

Guardian of a beloved modernist plywood furniture archive, Isokon Plus also likes to invite designers to create new pieces that heed the spirit of the original products while moving the brand in new directions. The Iso-lounge is the latest of these, a cantilevering chair designed by Jasper Morrison, whose simple appearance belies a complex design: in some places the layers of plywood are thinner, allowing the chair to flex when the user sits on it, while others are thicker where added strength is required.

isokonplus.com

Vaarnii

Pine has not been the most fashionable of materials of late for furniture, but that may change thanks to new design brand Vaarnii. Describing its wares as “brutally Finnish”, it makes simple, honest furniture from Scots pine, Finland’s most populous tree species, celebrating the timber’s natural grain. The pieces tend to look back to a time before the Nordic country’s 20th-century modernist prowess: the joints of the 005 coffee table pictured, designed by Soft Baroque, are inspired by traditional log houses.

vaarnii.com

Bohinc Studio

“I wanted to create pieces that look like they are good enough to eat,” says designer Lara Bohinc about her latest collection, named Afternoon Tea in homage to a life of indulgent comfort. Nine new designs include the Profiterole table pictured, which is made from nero marquina marble and is also available in a white timber version. The collection is recognisably Bohinc’s, with a curvy presence that features globes, capsule shapes and hemispheres, often clustered together or stacked.

bohincstudio.com

La Chance

Milan-based architect Hannes Peer’s latest furniture designs for La Chance have been launched. The Marmini daybed was inspired by artist Scott Burton’s early-1980s Rock Chairs – seating hewn from raw boulders – but here the idea has been refined, with a zig-zagging form of three wedges of marble in contrasting colours, topped by a layer of upholstery. A companion stool speaks the same visual language, with the three triangular shapes arranged more snugly to create a compact seat.

lachance.paris

Gubi

Named 1965’s Most Influential Lamp of the Year by Industrial Design magazine, the Stemlite was originally created by US designer Bill Curry, but rereleased by Gubi as part of its archive collections. A long-out-of-production wall light has now been made available, which features an angled steel arm topped by a mouth-blown glass shade. Curry is credited with inventing the ‘whole light’ design concept, where the base and shade are considered as one fluid piece, rather than as separate objects.

gubi.com

The art of entertaining

Lay the table with a mini-masterpiece, with Maison Matisse’s handcrafted ceramics

Founded on the core values embodied by the work of Henri Matisse, Maison Matisse is a French design house known for its bold tableware, decorative objects and furniture.

Working with emerging designers alongside established talent such as Jaime Hayon, the Bouroullec brothers, Alessandro Mendini and Cristina Celestino, it has developed a design language that is at once contemporary and rooted in craft tradition. Its La Musique and Intérieur aux Aubergines collections are made by Italian artisanal workshops, each chosen for their ancestral know-how and confirming the skill found on the other side of the Alps.

The hope is that each ceramic piece, intended to be handed down through generations like a Matisse artwork, will transmit his philosophy of optimism, joy and generosity.

Above Tableware from the La Musique collection, inspired by a 1939 Matisse painting of the same name

Swarf Hardware

Expanding its portfolio from cabinetry handles and knobs, Swarf Hardware has launched a windchime and shopkeeper’s bell created by artist and designer Yuri Suzuki. Described as “a celebration of the analogue”, the designs incorporate spun-brass bells and cut-out shapes in powder-coated aluminium. Suzuki explores sound within his art, recently unveiling a public installation in London’s Mayfair consisting of a series of interconnected ‘speaking tubes’ through which people can communicate.

swarfhardware.co.uk

Cassina

Michael Anastassiades’ Ordinal dining table for Cassina is now available in a new palette of sumptuous marbles. Originally released in timber in 2019, the table has a slim profile with distinctive legs set at an angle to the top, intended to create more space for diners. The new marble incarnations give the piece an even more monumental, sculptural look: choose from portoro silver (a black stone with silver veining), carrara white, calacatta gold or the opulent alpi green example pictured.

cassina.com

Sé

Slovenian designer Nika Zupanc first designed a comprehensive collection of furniture, lighting and accessories for Sé back in 2014; now she has added two new pieces to the portfolio. Silence (pictured above, atop Ini Archibong’s Atlas bench) is a table lamp with a carrara marble base, topped with a bellshaped shade, while Grace is a modular sofa with chunky, fluted channels, inspired by seashells. New tables by Parisian designer Damien LangloisMeurinne have also been added to Sé’s collection.

se-collections.com

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Simpson Studio

Architecture and design practice Simpson Studio is spotlighting the UK’s little-known marble quarries with a collection of furniture and accessories that incorporate native stones. The marble for the trays, side tables and candle feature Ledmore stone from north-west Scotland, or Ashburton from Devon. Ledmore is more likely to be made into gravel, chipped and spread on to garden paths, but these products show what a waste that is: its distinctive lime-green and grey veining is incredibly arresting.

simpson-studio.com

Pulpo

Inspired by the colour-block work of German artist of Imi Knoebel, Sebastian Herkner’s new Imi stools for Pulpo are a colourful yet minimal accent piece. The hand-made ceramic cylinders have been glazed in colours ranging from lavender to bubblegum pink, olive green, black, white and gold – shades that are evocative of Knoebel’s abstract paintings. The stools are available in a stack of either two or three sections, and custom colour combinations are available on request.

pulpoproducts.com

The Invisible Collection

Duncan Campbell and Charlotte Rey are the latest designers to work with The Invisible Collection, creating 12 pieces including this glossy Josef hall bench, inspired by the aesthetics of Secessionist Vienna. Typically bold and vibrant, in a palette of egg-yolk yellow, cobalt, aubergine and lilac, the Campbell-Rey collection also features Fabrizia, a skirted cocktail chair; Teddy, an asymmetrical sofa sitting on tiger-striped ball feet; and Magdalena, a chinoiserie mirror in a faux-tortoiseshell finish.

theinvisiblecollection.com