Category: Design and Interiors

A great example of a classic piece of design with a twist – the Yoyo lamp by Catarina von Matérn & Lisa Lindstöm.

Designed as a floor lamp or as a table lamp (as long as it doesn’t have a slope), the Yoyo keeps the classic toy shape, with a luminous surface providing light for both sides. And a Yoyo wouldn’t be complete without a string – in this case, a 16m red cable, which means you can roll it around the room wherever light is needed.

Available online, it retails for £207.

Find out more at the Funktion Alley website

You might well have seen Reestore on the TV show Dragon’s Den, looking for investment for its recycling/design business. I can’t recall if it got the cash or not – but with brilliantly quirky designs like the Max sofa, it should do just fine.

Max is typical of the company’s work, home design made from surplus household and industrial items. The perfect recycling business if you like. And Max uses a vintage roll top bath, mixing the old cast iron with newly-added upholstery to create a unique piece of seating for two.

Available online, it retails for £1,480.

Find out more at the Reestore website

The mid-40s isn’t an era I readily associate with forward-thinking design, but the Freeform sofa and ottoman by Isamu Noguchi does show the era wasn’t completely grey.

It was designed in 1946, but only went into limited production around 1950 – although it’s easier to pick up now thanks to a reissue from Vitra. Noguchi described it as ‘soft rock’, a pebble-shaped sofa with a natural-coloured upholstery, not to mention a beechwood frame and maple legs. I’d say it was a bit more futuristic than that, still capable of turning a number of heads 60 years on.

Not cheap to buy today, the sofa and ottoman retails for around £4,500. And that doesn’t include the Noguchi coffee table pictured here, which sells for a further £661.

Find out more at the Lollipop Shoppe website

Everyone seems to be into open-plan living these days, but if your huge open space needs a bit of breaking up, the Naxos X-Wall could do the trick.

Very much giving off that 70s space age vibe (you can imagine these adorning the set of Space 1999), but with with more substance than period plastic. The downside (I would imagine) is the weight of the blocks, which could add to the cost if you have to ship them in from Italy.

And I imagine the price tag is pretty hefty too. In fact, that’s the one thing missing from the mass of information to be found on the Naxos website. Drop them a line if you want to know the cost of the blocks.

Find out more at the Naxos website