Inspired by the light-changing magic of butterfly wings, The Virtue of Blue transforms solar technology into something poetic and alive. Made from 1,850 solar butterflies, the chandelier absorbs sunlight during the day and glows softly at night.
Blending beauty with function, the design reveals the hidden elegance of clean energy through a floating cloud of light and movement.
The Virtue of Blue by Jeroen Verhoeven & Studio De Makers Van, 2013▫️
Up close, the magic happens. Intricate patterns trick your eyes into seeing texture, softness, even a bit of wear, as if the chair has lived a whole life already. But this chair was actually made from a single sheet of laser-cut stainless steel.
It’s all done with incredible precision, turning a tough, industrial material into something that feels surprisingly warm and almost handmade.
Hard steel pretending to be soft and familiar, and creating the illusion of layers is what makes it so special.
Chair of Textures by Frank Tjepkema, 2006▫️
Instead of opening doors or pulling drawers, you simply push your things straight into this cabinet’s wooden surface. Big, small, round, or oddly shaped — everything finds its place in this flexible wooden grid.
As you press objects into the front, the rods gently shift and pop out the back, almost like the cabinet is reacting to your touch. It stretches, adjusts, and reshapes itself with every item you add, turning storage into a hands-on, satisfying experience.
It’s not about perfect order: it’s about interaction, curiosity, and leaving your own touch on the piece.
Push and Store Cabinet by Chung-Tang Ho, 2006▫️
Fruit Tray Sculpture made from thermo-formed PMMA plastic, bubbles up into a playful terrain of peaks and dips, like a funky egg tray.
It’s not just showing off, though. This piece knows its purpose: cradling fruit in style while letting air flow freely around it, keeping everything fresher for longer.
With its bold curves and minimalist charm, it turns any tabletop into a mini art scene, effortlessly blending function with flair, and always ready to steal a little attention.
Fruit Tray Sculpture by Richard Hutten, 1995▫️
‘UP’ movemenet focused on increasing the value of unsold products (“dead stock”) by redesigning them. The first collection bacm in 2011 used products supplied by Makro, van Gansewinkel, Vlisco, Royal Leerdam, and Mediq.
UP reaches sustainability through upcycling, redesign, and creative reinterpretation. Instead of letting products lose value over time and become waste, Droog reinvents them, adding new function or aesthetic value to bring them back into circulation.
The launch included a conference in Amsterdam where designers, industry experts, and sustainability professionals discussed the challenges of reusing unsold goods, including financial, legal, and market-related issues.
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Redesigns initiated by UP, to name a few:
▫️Stools by Studio Droog (supplied by Makro Netherlands)
▫️Trays by Comittee (supplied by Makro Netherlands)
▫️Tray by Studio Droog (supplied by Makro Netherlands)
▫️Toys by Isabel Berglund (plastic tubes supplied by Mediq Suomi)
▫️Snack set by Studio Droog (glass supplied by Royal Leerdam/Libbey Europe)
▫️The Lamp by Jenske Dijkhuis (airplane window provided by 2012Architecten/Air Salvage International)
▫️Tip-up Seat by Studio Droog (printed fabric supplied by Vlisco/Van Gansewinkel Group)
Using a classic urn shape, Jongerius cheekily asks: why reinvent the form when it already works?
Hand-cast in colorful silicone, each vase blends tradition with a soft, modern twist. These squishy rubber vessels celebrate “imperfections”, like bubbles, frays and seams, instead of hiding them.
Soft Vase Urn by Hella Jongerius, 1993▫️
Minale took inspiration from the simple, no-nonsense construction of Rietveld’s furniture and gave the famous Red and Blue Chair a playful twist. Instead of wood, he rebuilt it with Lego bricks. To him, Lego is the construction material of our time.
‘Rietveld broke the chair into 14 pieces to make it easy. Lego breaks it into 4445 pieces, which makes it even more easy.
Lego is a basic toy, but the process of making a chair out of it became so complicated that it questioned the simplicity that Lego promised. The process I went through makes the chair an even more authentic copy’, — Mario Minale.
Red Blue Lego Chair by Mario Minale, 2004▫️
The Apple Juice Bottle Birdhouse is a bottle with a secret second life. First, it happily holds apple juice. Once the juice is gone, the ceramic bottle moves outdoors and becomes a tiny home for birds. One drink, two lives — from kitchen table to garden tree.
Who knew finishing your juice could make a bird so happy?
The Apple Juice Bottle Birdhouse by Marcel Wanders, 1999 ▫️
Second-Hand is a bookshelf made from other furniture that clearly had previous lives. Old chairs, lamps, and assorted second-hand finds are stacked and assembled into a towering composition, then unified with a bold painted finish that ties the chaos together.
The piece quite literally tells objects to become something else. The result is part sculpture, part storage, and entirely characterful, celebrating reuse not as compromise, but as creative opportunity.
Second-Hand by Maarten Baas and Franck Bragigand, 2006▫️
Not just a chair, but a personal heater you can sit inside. Made from 50m of bent stainless-steel tubes and connected to the building’s heating system, it warms you directly instead of heating the whole room.
As hot water flows through it, different cozy zones appear: extra hot for your tea, warm for your back, and gently heated for your legs and feet. The design playfully questions how we heat and inhabit our spaces.
Cosy Chair by SMAQ, 2008▫️
