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The latest fair-going union of architecture and innovative material-processing technology is unveiled in Milan in the form of Architonic’s Concept Space V.

Gone are the days when a standard-issue ‘booth’ was enough of a platform on which design manufacturers could present their latest products at trade fairs. The contemporary exhibition stand is as much a brand-marketing device as it is a product

NOODLES NOODLES & NOODLES CORP. makes vintage-style steel furniture.

Having introduced its first upholstered collection at last year’s Salone del Mobile, Brianza-based furniture brand LEMA returned this year with three new sofas that evoke classic designs but bring them up-to-date with contemporary details and

The luminaires by Stuttgart-based LED specialist NIMBUS are known for their technical ingenuity, aesthetic sophistication and guaranteed moment of surprise.

LED lighting system SLY is the most successful newcomer of recent years.

What do you do if you love fire? Why, head up a fireplace manufacturer, of course. Bart Leenders, son of Harrie Leenders – founder of the eponymous Dutch woodburning-stove producer – knows a thing or two about combustion, heading off regularly

Following take-off on a recent flight from Hong Kong to London – and just as I settle into my seat – a baby starts to scream! The commotion is coming from towards the back of the A380. I contemplate an entirely sleepless night flight and then

It’s no mean feat producing timeless design that’s also innovative and future-facing. One of the few brands to pull this off is Tribù, the leading outdoor-furniture label that invites its users to sit back and relax, while itself doing anything

Bright rays and contrasts of matter: A line of lamps that brings back to memories, feelings, art works. Handcraft manufacture, Italian taste, fine materials. These are the traits of Matt, the new collection of design lamps by In-es.artdesign.

Makro doesn’t do compromise. Its second-to-none bathroom concepts respond to the precise needs of its customers, providing the perfect solution for even the most demanding of architectural projects.

To begin with, the former machine shop close to the city centre betrays no sign of its new purpose. Back in 2005, it came up for sale at the perfect time for Pforzheim entrepreneur Jürgen Glauner – and his company, LDM GmbH, relocated for the

The upholstered furniture KOINOR produces in its home region of Upper Franconia provides a level of comfort that is guaranteed to move its users.

Introversion isn’t something the Greeks have much time for. Particularly when it comes to design. Informed by a culture of sociability and dialogue, a cohort of export-focused Greek design manufacturers will be showing their quality products to a

Infuse, bake, crystallise. These verbs aren’t used to describe the work of a cook but rather the work of Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka, whose fabulous exhibition at the Contemporary Museum of Art Tokyo, vividly illustrates the creative scope

Family firm KEUCO's full range of bathroom furnishings offers customers a compelling standard of design and quality.

Clear, minimalist aesthetics are a hallmark feature of KETTNAKER's cabinet systems – as is their ability to express personality and lifestyle.

In architectural terms, given the time it takes to complete a large-scale project, ten years isn't that long. All the more remarkable therefore that Austrian manufacturer Rieder's innovative wonder material fibreC – fabricated from concrete and

There's something cooking in the kitchen and we're not talking food. It's a revolution in product design, production and consumption. Respected Italian manufacturer VALCUCINE, whose brand has long been known for its craftsmanship and research-led

K.B. FORM stands for well-designed, functional luminaires that are always characterised by restraint and timelessness.

We love to shop. This we know. But the way in which we purchase goods and services and the kind of brand experience we expect this to deliver is changing now more than ever. Enter the cutting-edge 'Retail of Tomorrow' total store-design and

This brand stands for modern furniture with intelligent sitting, reclining and relax functions: IPDESIGN.

HÜLSTA furniture is handmade by top craftsmen in a production process geared towards perfection and efficiency, enabling the company to guarantee individual interior solutions even for a batch size of one.

An intent silence fills the big, high-ceilinged, light-flooded rooms. Every single one of the women employed at Ege exquisit is a skilled specialist, and many of the ladies here have been contributing their experience for decades.

Swabian furniture manufacturer DRAENERT is known for its innovative technology and a sustainable approach to materials.

It takes teamwork to create a DOMUS lamp. The result: timeless classics crafted using traditional skills.

Architonic on the ground in the Swedish capital to bring you the best from the designer's design fair.

A matter of the heart: for 60 years, COR has been combining quality craftsmanship and innovative design to create supremely comfortable upholstered furniture. Inner values included!

A chip of the old block Tobia Scarpa certainly isn’t. Son of acclaimed architectural maestro Carlo Scarpa, the innovative designer, who turns 80 next year, was determined from the outset to plough his own creative furrow, in spite of his

Merely playing with fire wasn't enough for Johannes Wagner. Which is why, with CONMOTO, he started creating favourite spots for indoors and outside. The influence of internationally renowned designers is unmistakable.

Creative light-shaping by architects and interior architects, married with ingenious, technologically driven lighting solutions, are changing the way we experience, interact with and use light in work, contract and other spaces. It's a new dawn.

The functional and simple design of the Scandinavian countries meets the best of world design on the occasion of Stockholm Design Week. Lema will be a protagonist of the show with a display presenting some of its bestsellers for the living area in

Guardian and discoverer, traditionalist and trendsetter, retrospective and forward-looking: ClassiCon (Classic Contemporary Design) sees itself as a bridge that spans stylistic eras. Besides international furniture gems of the 20th century, it also

Systematic ingenuity, individual adaptability and consistently excellent quality: the varied product range from sliding door expert CABINET leaves nothing to be desired.

'April in Paris' goes the the old Broadway song. But for a number of years now, the smart crowd head to the French capital in January for the spring edition of the now firmly established MAISON&OBJET design fair.

When it comes to new materials that identify the kitchen as living space without making proven solutions obsolete, BULTHAUP is a connoisseur.

Almost 70 years in business and forward-thinking Japanese manufacturer OKAMURA, renowned for, among other products, its super-engineered office furniture, shows no sign of taking its eye off the ball of innovation. Sit up straight, people.

Beyond their utilitarian function, windows and doors set up an emotional expectation on the part of visitors as to what they'll encounter within a building, while, at the same time, negotiating the relation that users inside have with the exterior

Based in Michelau, Upper Franconia, BULLFROG sends upholstered comfort straight from the designer's hand to the four corners of the earth.

'Products developed for architecture' is how Italian brand TUBES describes its striking, resolutely sculptural radiators and towel rails, designed to shape the interior landscape as well as heat it. The manufacturer's story is one of a steadfast

No sooner has that Christmas tree been taken down then the spring season of the annual design calendar kicks off with that grandee of the international-trade-fair circuit, imm cologne. Your faithful scout Architonic presents, as ever, its detailed

Kati Meyer-Brühl is a name that stands for internationally acknowledged design. Since she started designing upholstered furniture for Brühl in Bad Steben as the company's Creative Director, Kati Meyer-Brühl's work has earned her a growing number

Because good quality calls for a great deal of care, BIELEFELDER WERKSTÄTTEN make every single piece of their exquisite upholstered furniture collection using the classic techniques of hand-crafted production.

Steel enamel specialist BETTE is constantly pushing the envelope.

Goslar-based manufacturer ALAPE has been creating aesthetic washplace solutions out of glazed steel for 117 years.

Again and again, DORNBRACHT comes up with new ways to cultivate the bathroom and kitchen as living spaces.

Icons of the design landscape, global brand KARTELL’s products – with their innovative use of plastic and their clever and expressive, often emotional, forms – have captured the imagination of design-conscious consumers around the world. The

Staircases are overdetermined things. A highly functional element in the internal circulation of a building, they are also laden with cultural and psychological symbolism. We may live in the age of the lift and escalator, but this hasn’t stopped

You can never have enough of a good thing, so they say. But lovers of iconic lamps from the early 20th century were for decades deprived of the possibility of owning some of the most striking luminary pieces by the Wiener Werkstätte and the Bauhaus,

Post-crisis it’s all about winning customer loyalty through value for money and memorable service. As an hotelier, taking your guests for granted can mean the difference between repeat business and damaging online reviews. Against this backdrop,

Collaboration isn't for everyone. If you're to make it work, it involves serious time and resources, not to mention a genuine willingness to go beyond your usual MO to achieve a creative result with added value. Celebrated Italian design brand

The mountain chalet has always been closely linked with the dream of a simple, rustic home in pristine natural surroundings. However, a number of projects throughout the world show that a holiday home in the mountains does not necessarily need to

The first-ever design show in the Middle East to unite on a single platform some of the best global design brands with award-winning design from the region, Dubai's new Downtown Design fair, like the soaring Burj Khalifa, has its sights set high.

Why do manufactured products look the way they do? Often it’s practical necessity. Sometimes it’s aesthetic tradition. In the case of sanitaryware, it’s due historically to the materials limits of Vitreous China and Fine Fire Clay. Enter

More statements from some of our Architonic's most valued members, partners and friends during this, our tenth anniversary year. It's all about you, guys._

Nominated for this year's Design Prize Switzerland, Zurich-based designer Beat Karrer's material innovation FluidSolids, with its strong ecological credentials and impressive programmability, is poised to give traditional materials like metal and

The annual London Design Festival, now with over 300 city-wide events, reflects the British capital's status as an international creative hub. But it also provides a platform for scores of indigenous designer-makers – both individuals and brands

For a colourless, odourless gas, CO2 packs a punch. It now accounts for 76% of all greenhouse-gas emissions. So how do you communicate to a fair-going public the relative merits of different materials when it comes to carbon emissions? Materials

Contemporary architects internationally are breathing new life into the old tradition of using ceramic elements on exteriors. The result are striking facades that marry expressive ornament with sustainability.

Feeling a little bit lost? It's no surprise, really. As populations grow, cities expand, international travel increases and we all work (and live) harder and faster, it seems that there are ever more new and complex terrains to navigate. Enter a

3D-printed architecture might seem like the stuff of the future, but a number of architects are experimenting to try to turn tomorrow's fantasy builds into today's innovative projects. Architonic investigates.

Major demographic shifts, including an ageing population and the increase in a younger workforce, present serious challenges for the office landscape. What do the different generations who come together to work want and need from their office

There's a long tradition of architectural photography presenting viewers with depopulated spaces – interior and exterior landscapes, devoid of the very users for which they have been designed. Celebrated Dutch photographer IWAN BAAN's unparalleled

Increased urban congestion. Climate change and sustainability. Urban regeneration. The reasons for the burgeoning movement in highly considered, integrated green spaces in towns and cities around the globe are as manifold as the forms they take.

The working environment changes and with it interior designs do so, too. It is more than ever essential to create environments, where employees feel comfortable. Apart from a good payment and an interesting perspective it is the working environment

Plugging in to Belgrade Design Week means a number of things. A high-calibre line-up of international speakers. Inspiring conversations and encounters. And a lot of parties. The Serbian capital shows how it’s done.

As ever-taller skyscrapers increasingly dominate the urban landscape, London-based architecture and design journalist Dominic Lutyens asks how designers can push the boundaries of interiors ever further upwards.

With an increase in international travel predicted for 2013, on the heels of a rebound for hoteliers last year, the hotel industry is looking more than ever for ways to make the visitor experience a memorable and profitable one. Enter striking

Architonic has been invited to partner up with Field Trip, Google’s location-experience app that alerts you to interesting stuff in your general vicinity. Smartphone users will now be able to locate the best architectural projects nearby –

Architonic isn't just a virtual showcase of products and materials. It's an international community, made up of real people. This year sees ten years of Architonic, so we asked some of our valued members, partners and friends to say a few words about

Materials Council has been busy. Founded in partnership with Architonic in 2012, the leading London-based consultancy has proved in a mere nine months its expertise and relevance to architects, manufacturers and business, providing indispensable

Nature does a pretty good job of shaping our environment. But what happens when innovation and creative thinking are applied to the more sustainable natural materials out there? Leading materials consultancy Materials Council investigates the

Tobias Lutz and Nils Becker came unstuck with their first start-up. Their second ranks among the biggest online research platforms for architecture and design. This year sees Architonic celebrate its tenth year in business, while making the leap to

As the world's busiest revolving door, New York is no stranger to new cultural sights and influences. This year's New York Design Week saw a raft of Latin American designers and design collectives exhibit their highly polished and conceptually

Small works of architecture – from Canada, US and Mexico, to Norway, Chile and Sicily – are appearing across the planet on the basis of new design practices and attitudes. Journalist Valentina Ciuffi explores.

There's strength in numbers. A new date in the international design-expo calendar – The May Design Series – has successfully brought together and revitalised two pre-existing specialist fairs, creating an impressive showcase for high-end

When was the last time a building won an award for the way it sounds? Architecture, and by extension society, has long privileged the visual over the aural. Yet a number of architects are starting to think and design in a more complete sensory way,

A recent panel discussion at Washington DC’s International Design Festival got to grips with the somewhat provocative question, “What Happened to American Design?”, the implication being it doesn't enjoy the singular, coherent identity of other

In eight short years, Belgrade Design Week has put the Serbian capital on the creative map, playing annual host to an unmissable pow-wow of the finest creative minds around.

With an expanded North American sales team, a bigger presence at this year's ICFF in New York, and two brand-new apps – 'Best American Design Brands' and 'Best Canadian Design Brands' – Architonic has gone all transatlantic.

Journalist Klaus Leuschel provides a crash course in, and a guided tour of, grand hotels, and how even design excellence in the five-star tradition is of no avail when the quality of hospitality does not match it.

Need more light in your life? The second part of Architonic's survey of high-end lighting design from this year's Euroluce fair in Milan should provide the illumination you're looking for.

We may live in somewhat gloomy times, but this year’s confident edition of Euroluce – the biennial international lighting showcase at the Milan Salone del Mobile – shone brighter than an old-fashioned 100-Watt light bulb.

No one provides you with as an exhaustive and detailed photographic coverage of the annual Milan Furniture Fair as Architonic. On this we pride ourselves. If you weren't able to make it to the 2013 edition of the mother of all design trade fairs,

A collage of stories and urban situations from around the world: BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, Topotek1 and Superflex’s response to Copenhagen’s most multi-cultural district.

Looking, now more than ever, for ways of adding value to its products, there’s a renaissance of craft-based thinking within design manufacturing taking place. Where better to see this trend presented and discussed than in Milan’s leading design

Many hands make light work, goes the old saying. Many new LED producers also make the creative possibilities of working with such a fast-changing technology exciting, thanks to the proliferation of products they bring to the market. But, for lighting

Three score old and in rude health: the iF design gold awards, handed out to a painstakingly selected, international cohort of companies at the recent Munich Creative Business Week for their outstanding products, is looking to the future.

The spring of architectural creativity is in full flow, with a number of offices internationally adding value to the age-old practice of therapeutic bathing. Here's our selection of the best of the latest spa and wellness architecture. Go ahead. The

The biggest, the fastest, the smartest. When it comes to marketing-speak, there's nothing like a superlative to liven things up. Best of Best – the annual exhibition held at imm cologne of the category winners from the Interior Innovation Award

Head north and you'll find a thriving design culture where the level of consideration given to the way things look, feel and work isn't determined by their scale. Be they housing projects, chairs or taps, the Scandinavian approach to design continues

System furniture did what it's wont to do at this year's imm cologne: expand. A number of new and innovative furniture programmes, modular in nature, were shown alongside augmented and reworked old favourites. It's all about joined-up thinking.

If you think textile design is, well, a little two-dimensional, think again. Contemporary producers of high-quality woven materials for interiors are busy exploring all sorts of innovative directions in terms of materials, processes and applications.

More than 500 young and emerging designers have taken to the [D3] Design Talents stage at the Cologne Furniture Fair over the past ten years, presenting their ideas in prototype form to both an industry and a general audience. Architonic takes a look

‘Are Swiss architects unable to create interesting buildings?’, asked Felix E Müller, editor-in-chief of Swiss newspaper NZZ am Sonntag, in a recent article. ‘Unfortunately, all new buildings look the same.’ With this provocative statement,

stilhaus – the new design destination in Switzerland – doesn't do things by halves. 20,000 square metres of retail and exhibition space next to one of the country's busiest motorway intersections offers architects, planners and end consumers an

Everything changes, so they say. But should it? What about decades-old, often iconic designs? Should they be preserved, as it were, their contemporary production remaining ‘true’ in every respect to the ‘original’? Or ought manufacturers be

In spite of the rise of e-commerce, the physical point of sale is still with us. That said, the traditional store is having to up its game in terms of the experience and brand relevance it offers consumers – not only to compete with online shopping

"It is our aim to provide readers and the market with an efficient and high-quality environment for research, inspiration and communication. To this end, Architonic and Designboom are a perfect match because they complement each other both in terms

Ventura, the avant-garde brand of Swiss watches, is back. The first "manufacture électronique" for high quality digital watches has recently presented, in the shape of the SPARC MGS, a timepiece which once more sets a new benchmark in chronometer

More often than not, office architecture can be, well, a little inward-looking. Shut out the outside world and focus staffers' attention on their building's interior spaces and you'll keep them focused on their work. Right? Wrong. The OperAlp/SALEWA

If the Slow Design movement were looking for a poster boy, Ask Emil Skovgaard would undoubtedly be on the shortlist. Treading a fine and virtuosic line between design, craft and art, the Copenhagen-based creative’s work is, among other things, an

We'd like to talk to you about a delicate matter. The toilet. The WC. The lavatory. However you choose to refer to it, we all require regular access to this most prosaic of environments. Which is why it's refreshing to see a number of recent public

Lighting always has to work harder when it's deployed in underground spaces. But when the space in question is a museum one, where the considered illumination of its exhibits is key – not to mention their protection against the potentially damaging

When it came to launching their latest family of products, high-end Swiss bathroom manufacturer decided to buck the trend for the ultra-rational and focus on building on the softer, timeless design language of its earlier Palomba collection. The

FluidSolids® is a composite material consisting of renewable natural raw materials. It is made up of fibre, filling materials and a binding agent. All of these materials are generated as industrial waste in the processing of renewable raw materials.

White. But not as you know it. Newly launched creative materials consultancy Materials Council's inaugural show at this year's Super Brands London neatly demonstrated that there's more than meets the eye when it comes to that most pure of colours.

While the London Design Festival's big-top design destinations, such as Super Brands London, Tent, designjunction and 100% Design pulled large crowds, a number of design brands used their city showrooms as spaces for serving up fascinating slices of

From a global view of history of design, the Czech design scene still remains at the edge of historical periods and styles. Despite that fact, some great Czech designers have found themselves in an international context in the past.

At a former industrial site in the West of Zurich, young people show the potential of an open floor plan, how to build sustainably using recycled materials, how to be resource conscious, and demonstrate that food from Aldi – a discounter – can

Among and around the buildings that will house hockey players and hurdlers, cyclists and swimmers throughout the duration of this summer’s Olympic Games in London are public spaces that strive to meet the exacting Olympic standards of excellence

It could be argued that the pinnacle of urban landscape architecture was reached in seventeenth century France and the French formal gardens or in Britain's philantrophic Victorian public parks in the ninenteenth century. Contemporary urban

The Milan fair provides the ideal setting for the premiere of Architonic Concept Space IV. And this will be a global first because never before has the FluidSolids® material, developed over many years and patented by the prestigious Swiss designer

An important component of the Japanese art of lacquerwork is the special technique known as "urushi", which uses many layers of wafer-thin, semi-transparent lacquer to create a surface of almost mystical radiance and sensual depth.

Every city evolves differently, according to fluctuations in population and wealth, changes in industry and other social and economic factors. As old buildings are replaced, or new ones constructed, spaces between these buildings appear or alter;

To graft is a way of rethinking the seemingly irreconcilable. On this basis, Gregor Hoheisel, Christoph Körner, Lars Krückeberg, Wolfram Putz and Thomas Willemeit have developed complex fusion methods and reinvigorated the contemporary discourse

It's forty years since the love-it-or-hate-it, style-driven phenomenon that was postmodernism first emerged in architectural practice, soon manifesting itself in design, art, fashion and music. The V&A's major new show, 'Postmodernism: Style and

Hannes Wettstein is considered one of the most significant and innovative designers of our times. His most important works will now be displayed in an exhibition - put together by Studio Hannes Wettstein, presented by Institut gta.

Cersaie offers not just a comprehensive overview of the variety of ceramic surfaces available on the market but also of the latest developments in the bathroom field. In Bologna at the end of September visitors will be able to discover the latest

A number of recently completed kindergarten projects have proved that designing user-centred environments for the more diminutive among us shouldn't be at odds with creating highly expressive structures. Architonic takes a look at a selection of