French artist and designer Coco Brun joins forces with Mexico City-based Sten Studio for Echoes of Mexico, a collection of sculptural vessels rooted in the country’s lapidary traditions. Hand-carved from red travertine, veined marble and multicolored onyx, the pieces translate references to ancient Mesoamerican architecture and ornament into a contemporary design language. Developed with support from the Institut Français d’Amérique Latine (IFAL), Mobilier National and Galerie Territorio, the project was recently recognized in the fourth edition of Le French Design 100 at Art Paris.

The collaboration unfolds through two capsule collections, each limited to a maximum of 10 pieces. Rather than sourcing new blocks, Brun and Sten Studio work with remnants from the workshop’s existing production, including red travertine, white Venetian marble, black Orizaba marble, and pink and green onyx. Variations in veining, translucency and color are therefore not treated as imperfections to be corrected, but as part of the final composition — which is fortunate, considering stone rarely agrees to repeat itself.

marble and onyx define the sculptural vessel series | all images courtesy of Sten Studio and Coco Brun

PYRAMIDS, MASKS AND POLISHED MASS

The Místicos series takes its geometry from the structural logic of Mexican pyramids. Faceted silhouettes, sloped surfaces and flattened summits abstract architectural forms into compact vessels, balancing the visual weight of polished marble against the translucent depth of onyx. Rather than reproducing specific monuments, the pieces distill their proportions and mass into a smaller, more domestic scale.

A different set of references informs Abstracted Ancestry, which looks to the layered geometry of Maya ceremonial masks and, in particular, the oversized ear ornaments worn by dignitaries. The resulting vessels feature oval bodies, sweeping curves and two straight perforated fins that extend from either side. These openings reference the form of historical ear ornaments while also introducing voids into otherwise dense stone objects, shifting the pieces somewhere between vessel, sculpture and architectural fragment.

each piece is shaped from reclaimed stone fragments

LEFTOVER STONE GOES ON TOUR

Material reuse runs through both collections. By working with offcuts from Sten Studio’s primary production, Echoes of Mexico gives fragments that might otherwise remain unused a new formal role. The project therefore connects a highly traditional craft process with a contemporary concern for material efficiency, while preserving the irregularities that make each vessel distinct. The result is not so much recycling disguised as luxury as a demonstration that the leftover piece can occasionally be the most interesting one.

The collection is also conceived as a traveling dialogue between France and Mexico. Following its presentation in Europe, the works are set to appear at the Lake Como Design Festival, before continuing to Mexico City Design Week as part of Inmersiones Creativas at Casa Ortega, an exhibition marking 200 years of diplomatic relations between France and Mexico. The journey concludes in Paris at 1000 Vases, staged at Espace Commines during Art Basel week, extending the project’s conversation between craft, geography and cultural memory across several very different contexts.

polished stone highlights the natural veining and color

the vessels combine dense marble with translucent onyx

each object is produced as a limited-edition piece

geometric forms reference pyramids and ceremonial ornament

upcycled stone gives every vessel a unique material character

the series brings together craft and contemporary design

curved and faceted silhouettes shape the collection

a closer look at the marble and onyx details

project info:

name: Echoes of Mexico
designer: Sten Studio | @sten.studio

artist: Coco Brun | @c_o_c_o_brun

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: Iñaki Laguardia | designboom

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In Ecuador’s Chocó forest, Minqa Atelier places a 53-square-meter residential refuge on a steep site in Pedro Vicente Maldonado, where heavy rain and difficult access shaped how the house could touch the ground. Chocó Pambil Refuge descends with the terrain as a sequence of raised wooden platforms, keeping the slope visible beneath the floor instead of cutting a flat pad into the hillside. From the forest, its dark timber walls sit behind a lighter teak frame, while glazing opens the interior toward the vegetation.

The plan uses those changes in level as its internal organization. Sleeping and shared spaces occupy separate platforms, yet they remain visually connected under the same roof. Because the floor keeps dropping, each zone meets the forest at a slightly different height. A bed sits almost level with the tree trunks outside, while the lower living spaces look through tall panes toward the slope.

images © Michael Benitez

river stone below, exposed teak above

The refuge meets the hillside with gabions filled with river stone, reducing the amount of excavation needed across the uneven ground. Above them, local teak forms an exposed structural frame whose dimensions organize the rooms and roof. Limited access to the site also influenced the construction system, so the components were designed as coordinated pieces that could be transported in and assembled on site.

Along the more exposed exterior surfaces, the team at Minqa Atelier uses charred wood suited to the damp setting. The dark cladding gives the house a dense outer skin, while the teak structure stays readable along the glazed elevations and through the interior. Bolted joints remain visible overhead, and rectangular rooflights slot between the beams, making the construction itself much of the visual language.

Chocó Pambil Refuge descends a steep forest slope in Pedro Vicente Maldonado

the forest enters at several heights

Large openings keep views moving laterally through the refuge, while rooflights bring daylight into the deeper parts of the plan. Natural ventilation passes through the open interior, and the surrounding vegetation appears almost wall-like behind the glass. The changing floor heights keep the forest shifting in relation to the body, sometimes below eye level and sometimes filling the full elevation.

At only 53 square meters, the house gets much of its spatial range from the changing section and few internal divisions. The original terrain stays legible beneath the raised platforms, so the construction reads as something assembled over the slope instead of imposed across it.

Minqa Atelier organizes the 53 square-meter house as a sequence of timber platforms

river stone gabions are expressed along the interior and support the structure with limited excavation

local teak forms the exposed frame throughout the refuge

shifts in floor level divide the compact interior while keeping the space connected

charred timber protects the exterior surfaces in Ecuador’s humid Chocó climate

project info:

name: Chocó Pambil Refuge

architect: Minqa Atelier | @minqa.atelier

location: Pedro Vicente Maldonado, Ecuador
lead architects: Michael Benitez, Adriana Armendariz
design team: Juan Frelo, Mateo Porras, Eduardo Ramos

area: 53 square meters
completion: 2026
photography: © Michael Benitez

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Japanese designer Takuto Ohta explores the afterlife of temporary architecture with log x, a furniture project developed from approximately 200 Yoshino cedar logs originally used for an exhibition. Sourced from Nara Prefecture, the timber had been milled with a kerf — a deliberate slit intended to reduce cracking as the wood dries — and was left without a clear purpose once the installation came down. Ohta acquired the entire batch, irregularities included, and brought it to SKWAT in Kameari, Tokyo, where the material became the basis for a two-month design experiment.

Instead of beginning with a predetermined collection, Ohta worked directly with the available logs, testing cutting, joining and assembly techniques to discover what each piece could become. The process eventually produced around 50 pieces of functional furniture, while the remaining timber continued to participate in the space in a less finished state. Logs arranged at regular intervals beside the adjoining café doubled as seating for visitors and as material waiting to enter the workshop — furniture, stockpile and prototype all at once.

chair 1 | images courtesy of Takuto Ohta

DESIGNING BY CUTTING, TESTING AND REPEATING

The project developed through an intentionally immediate cycle of making. Forms and construction techniques discovered through hands-on experimentation were quickly applied to other logs, allowing the collection to evolve through repetition rather than through a fixed drawing set. The existing dimensions, kerfs and inconsistencies of the cedar became active design parameters, with each new intervention responding to what was already present in the material.

This open-ended method is reflected in the name log x. ‘Log’ refers simultaneously to the timber itself and to the mathematical abbreviation for logarithm, while x acts as a variable for the different forms and construction systems produced during the process. By categorizing these variations, Ohta turns fabrication into something that can be read and compared, making the gradual development of the project visible rather than hiding it behind a polished final collection.

chair 2

50 OBJECTS FROM AN EXHIBITION’S LEFTOVERS

Across the resulting pieces, the logs retain much of their original mass and visual character. Rather than processing the cedar until every element becomes identical, Ohta works with the dimensions and features inherited from their previous use, introducing only the cuts and connections needed to transform them into stools, benches, tables and other functional objects. The project sits within the designer’s broader interest in ‘decomposition’ and ‘production’, examining how objects can be broken down, reorganized and made to enter new relationships.

In this sense, log x is as much about material circulation as it is about furniture. Temporary exhibitions routinely rely on structures designed for exceptionally short lives, yet Ohta treats dismantling as the beginning of another design phase rather than its conclusion. Two hundred redundant logs become a working material library, then seating, then prototypes, and finally a family of objects — a reminder that ‘temporary’ does not necessarily have to mean ‘finished with’.

chair 3

chair 4

table 1

a closer look at the log x furniture pieces

chair 5

table 2

chair 6

details from Takuto Ohta’s log x series

log x on view at SKWAT in tokyo

Takuto Ohta experiments with the cedar logs during the making process

chair 7

table 3

project info:

name: log x
designer: Takuto Ohta | @ohtatakuto

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: Iñaki Laguardia | designboom

The post takuto ohta turns 200 leftover cedar logs into an evolving furniture system appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Peleg Design brings a little reptilian assistance to windy beach days with Crococlips, a set of crocodile-shaped grips designed to keep towels securely in place. Attached to the corners of a towel, the compact accessories clamp onto the fabric and help prevent it from folding, shifting or taking an unscheduled trip across the sand when the wind picks up.

The idea follows the studio’s familiar formula of combining function with visual humor. Rather than disguising the mechanism, Crococlips turn the gripping action itself into the joke: the crocodile’s open jaws close around the textile, transforming a straightforward fastening device into a characterful beach companion. One on each corner, and the towel suddenly has its own small security team.

the crocodile-shaped clips secure towels in place | images courtesy of Peleg Design

A BITE-SIZED SOLUTION TO WINDY DAYS

Designed for beaches, picnics and other outdoor settings, the clips respond to an everyday inconvenience with an intentionally simple gesture. Their pronounced jaws create a secure hold on the fabric, while the animal silhouette makes their purpose immediately legible. Instead of adding another technical-looking accessory to the beach bag, Peleg Design gives the mechanism a personality of its own.

That approach reflects the broader philosophy of the studio, founded by Shahar Peleg in 2004. Peleg Design develops household and lifestyle objects around three recurring principles — functionality, aesthetics and humor — often using visual twists and playful associations to rethink familiar products. Crococlips continue this strategy at a particularly modest scale: no reinvention of the beach towel required, just something determined enough to hold onto it.

each clip grips onto the edge of the fabric

FUNCTION GETS A SENSE OF HUMOR

The clips also embody Peleg Design’s interest in objects that reveal their idea almost instantly. Their crocodile form is not merely decorative but tied directly to the way the product works, with the metaphorical bite becoming a literal gripping mechanism. This overlap between image and function allows an otherwise ordinary accessory to operate somewhere between practical tool and small visual gag.

For a product designed to solve such a minor problem, Crococlips make a surprisingly visible intervention. They keep fabric anchored while adding a playful detail to the edges of a towel or blanket, turning wind resistance into something a little less serious. The beach may remain unpredictable, but at least the crocodiles are holding on.

Crococlips are designed for windy beach days

the playful accessory combines function and humor

the clips can be attached to each towel corner

project info:

name: Crococlips
designer: Peleg Design | @pelegdesign

The post peleg design’s crocodile clips keep beach towels from blowing away appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Pablo Luna Studio completes a bamboo pavilion for yoga in Bali whose roof spreads outward to recall a lotus when seen from above. The reference is literal enough to read from the air, while the building feels looser from the ground, where the petal edges extend beyond a circular floor deck and a sparse ring of bamboo supports. Set on a planted slope beside a river, the shala sits slightly above the terrain, with the forest continuing right up to its edge.

The architects began developing Lotus Yoga Shala in 2021 and describes it as one of the first buildings through which the practice explored biomimicry. The broad lotus silhouette was maintained throughout the long development stage, but in its finished form much of the building’s character comes from the dense bamboo work underneath.

images © Pablo Luna Studio

petal geometry becomes structure

Each of Pablo Luna Studio’s ‘lotus petals’ grows from a structural system of petung bamboo that turns the floral outline into the actual construction of the roof. Its primary arches bundle three lengths of petung, while split bamboo forms an interwoven gridshell across them. At the perimeter, loads gather into clusters of three to five bamboo poles. The supports concentrate around these structural junctions, leaving broad openings between them and keeping the edge of the pavilion visually open toward the landscape.

From inside, the roof becomes a dense drawing of crossing bamboo ribs, with woven panels stretched between them to filter daylight. The construction has enough pattern to give the ceiling its own visual weight, even as the floor plate stays simple beneath it. Hoping to preserve the existing contours and limiting contact with the ground, the architects design the raised platform to follow the hillside instead of flattening it.

Pablo Luna Studio shapes a bamboo roof as an array of overlapping lotus petals

the landscape stays inside the room

Conventional walls largely disappear around the practice space, which leaves the roof overhead as its strongest spatial boundary. Views extend toward the river and dense vegetation, while daylight and air move freely through the perimeter. For a pavilion intended for yoga and meditation, that openness gives the building much of its atmosphere before any wellness language enters the picture. The floor and canopy simply frame the surrounding landscape as part of the room.

The lotus gives the shala an easy visual identity, though the more convincing move is how Pablo Luna Studio makes that image structural. The petal outline grows directly from the roof system, and the same curved geometry creates broad shelter with relatively few columns. At 125 square meters, the building remains compact, with most of its presence coming from a canopy that expands far beyond the deck and seems to hover among the vegetation. It is a small pavilion whose roof largely defines its identity.

the 125 square-meter pavilion open outward over the river and forest

arched petung bamboo members form the primary structure beneath the canopy

a split bamboo gridshell ties the curved roof into a continuous shell

clusters of bamboo columns leave broad openings around the perimeter

the elevated floor follows the existing contours of the hillside

woven bamboo filters daylight across the practice space

project info:

name: Lotus Yoga Shala / Lotus Shala Wellness Facility

architect: Pablo Luna Studio

location: Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
area: 125 square meters
completion: 2026

photography: © Pablo Luna Studio

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Munich-based architecture practice Opposite Office has opened its latest workplace inside a tree on the historic campus of Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. Named Baumhaus Office, the approximately one-square-meter structure responds to a fairly terrestrial problem: Munich’s high office rents. Since much of the studio’s work already takes place across changing international locations, the architects began questioning whether an internationally operating practice needed a large permanent headquarters at all.

The answer is a tiny elevated workspace designed for two to three architects, temporarily installed in one of the campus trees while Opposite Office works on two projects in Weimar: Fictional Infrastructures at M Books Gallery and Last Fellow II at ACC Galerie, the latter developed in cooperation with Villa Massimo Rome. The tree itself is among the oldest in Weimar and, according to the studio, was reportedly planted by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe during his time in the city. A desk, workstations, model-making area and essential infrastructure are compressed into the smallest possible footprint, turning spatial economy into both necessity and architectural proposition.

all images courtesy of Opposite Office

FROM BAUHAUS FUNCTION TO ROMANTIC CONTEMPLATION

The temporary office also places itself within Weimar’s long tradition of experimental construction. On a campus historically associated with rationality, function and modern ideas of progress, Opposite Office introduces another reference point: Romanticism and its understanding of nature as something more than background, resource or object of study. Here, the tree is not simply supporting the architecture; it becomes one of its central occupants.

A skylight reinforces that shift in perspective. Rather than opening toward an abstract patch of sky, it looks directly into the tree canopy above, bringing branches and leaves into the architects’ immediate field of vision. The gesture turns the small building into an instrument for observation, briefly directing attention away from the built environment and toward something considerably older — and rather less interested in deadlines.

the one-square-meter workspace sits among the trees

HOW LITTLE OFFICE DOES AN ARCHITECTURE PRACTICE NEED?

Opposite Office draws a parallel with Cosimo, the protagonist of Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees, who leaves life on the ground to inhabit the treetops. Baumhaus Office adopts the reference not as a proposal for escape but as a way of changing vantage point. Its extreme reduction of conventional office infrastructure reflects the studio’s broader working model, in which architects move between different cities, institutions and contexts rather than organizing every project from one fixed headquarters.

The treehouse consequently functions as workplace, meeting point and starting point for new projects while remaining intentionally open to visitors, clients and students. Opposite Office also describes more-than-human inhabitants as welcome, extending the idea of occupation beyond the architecture practice itself. With little more than a desk, a roof and a tree beneath it, Baumhaus Office asks how much architecture architects actually require to work — and suggests that the answer may be substantially less than the average office lease implies.

the compact office accommodates two to three architects

the temporary structure occupies the Bauhaus campus in Weimar

a closer look at the compact treehouse office

the treehouse functions as both workspace and meeting point

the interior compresses essential office functions into minimal space

timber surfaces define the compact elevated workspace

views from inside Opposite Office’s temporary workspace

the project explores a more flexible model for architectural practice

Baumhaus Office offers a different perspective on the working environment

project info:

name: Baumhaus Office
architects: Opposite Office

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: Iñaki Laguardia | designboom

The post opposite office moves into one-square-meter treehouse at bauhaus university appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Photographer François Prost unveils Love Hotel, a photo series capturing the facades of Japan‘s love hotels during a 2023 road trip from Tokyo to Shikoku Island. The collection focuses on roadside architecture, showcasing faded signage and colorful facades that reflect a specific aspect of Japanese popular culture. This visual documentation shifts away from conventional depictions of Japan, instead painting a vernacular portrait of the area, highlighting the, often overlooked, design elements of these unusual establishments.

all images by François Prost

Love Hotel series to be published as monographic photo book

The series explores the juxtaposition between Japan’s densely urbanized megacities and its orderly agricultural countryside through the prism of love hotel exteriors. These hotels, rooted in Japanese popular culture, are designed to offer couples a private space away from the limited privacy of small family homes. Here, the photographer links distinctive architectural typologies with a cultural phenomenon reflecting on intimacy.

The Love Hotel series, launched on Kickstarter, will be published as a 230-page book, consistent in format with Prost’s previous photographic studies of vernacular architecture, including ‘After Party’ (France, 2011/23), ‘Gentlemen’s Club’ (USA, 2019), ‘Discoteca’ (Spain, 2020), and ‘Club Ivoire’ (Ivory Coast, 2023).

François Prost’s photography collection documents the quirky facades of Japan’s love hotels

roadside architecture, faded signs, and vibrant facades take center stage in Love Hotel photo series

distinctive love hotel designs reflect a cultural phenomenon tied to intimacy in Japan

Prost’s photography highlights the contrast between Japan’s urban landscape and its rural countryside

the facades feature colorful, peculiar designs that challenge conventional architectural aesthetics

Love Hotel shifts the lens from traditional Japanese imagery to overlooked roadside structures

François Prost’s project merges architectural documentation with cultural exploration

architectural typologies serve as a lens to explore Japanese popular culture and its nuances

the series situates love hotels within a broader context of Japan’s vernacular architecture

from castles to boats and sea creatures, Japan’s love hotels set up the most peculiar ornamental facades

project info:

name: Love Hotel

photographer: François Prost | @francoisprost

This article is part of designboom’s MODES OF HABITATION chapter, exploring how the spaces we inhabit can reshape the ways we live together. Discover more stories rethinking domesticity, shared living, and the many forms a home can take here.

The post peculiar facades of roadside love hotels paint françois prost’s japan photo diary appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Edited by curator, writer, and researcher Anneke Abhelakh, The Albanian Files: Freedom and Architecture brings together 60 international architectural practices working in Albania, documenting a country whose built environment has been reshaped since the collapse of its communist regime. Published by Lars Müller Publishers, the 796-page volume collects projects, proposals, and first-hand reflections from practices that have worked in Albania over the past two decades, creating a record of a transformation that is still underway.

Albania’s architectural transition is the central subject of the book, but the publication is also interested in who gets to narrate that transition. Abhelakh describes the volume as both an archive and a conversation, ‘partial and unfinished, like the story it records.’ Its contributors describe their ambitions, collaborations, negotiations, opportunities, contradictions, and competing interests while working within a rapidly changing national context. The result is less a definitive account of contemporary Albanian architecture than a collection of outside perspectives on a country where architecture has become closely tied to questions of renewal and national identity.

Abhelakh structures the volume as a series of 60 ‘files,’ each dedicated to one architectural practice. Every file combines project data, a short interview, and visual and textual documentation, including first-hand reflections from the architects themselves. Practices such as 51N4E, Aires Mateus, Álvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron, Studio Gang, Kengo Kuma & Associates, and Elemental appear alongside their local collaborators, shifting attention from architectural authorship alone toward the relationships, negotiations, and decisions through which projects take shape.

OMA’s Mangalem 21 (read more here) |  image courtesy of Kontakt

The book records an architectural landscape still in transition

The book traces the presence of international architectural practices in Albania, some of which have been working in the country since the early 2000s. Their projects range from social housing and public squares to luxury resorts, cultural institutions, monuments, and urban planning, which together show the different ways architecture has participated in Albania’s transformation, as well as the range of interests involved in shaping its built environment.

Architecture in Albania is closely tied to the broader social and political changes in the country following the end of communist rule. Its position in the Mediterranean has long connected it to different cultural influences, while the post-1990 period opened the country to new forms of political, economic, and architectural exchange.

At the same time, The Albanian Files acknowledges the limits of its own perspective. Abhelakh points to recent protests in Tirana as a reminder that Albanian voices, those shaping, questioning, and living with these changes, are part of a larger story that the book does not attempt to tell. This makes the publication more than a survey of international practices, as it also raises questions about who gets to document and shape a the architectural transformation of a country

The 60 contributions offer a picture of a process that is still unfolding. They show how architects work within changing conditions, but also how projects are shaped by different interests, collaborations, and negotiations. 

Pyramid of Tirana by MVRDV (read more here) | image © Ossip van Duivenbode

A 20-year record of architecture in Albania

Designed by Haller Brun, the volume contains approximately 1,500 illustrations alongside contributions from the participating practices. With a foreword by Albanian prime minister Edi Rama and a text by Abhelakh, it occupies an unusual position between architectural survey, professional archive, and contemporary record.

The Albanian Files captures a period of change that is still unfolding. Its 60 contributions offer different views of how international practices have worked in Albania over the past two decades, while leaving open the larger question of how this transformation is experienced by the people living through it.

The Pyramid of Tirana photographed in 2012, set within the landscaped public space surrounding the landmark

OODA, Hora Vertikale (read more here) | image © Plomp

Vlore Beach Urban Development by Oppenheim Architecture | image by MIR

Bond Tower by OODA | visualization © Plomp

mapping the city through its green structure and changing urban patterns | book images courtesy of Lars Müller Publishers

project documentation combines photographs, renderings, drawings, and text

examining Albania’s urban development

a map of Tirana locates major architectural projects across the city

archival postcards, newspapers, and historical images

a conceptual study for Mount Tirana by CEBRA 

proposals ranging from a new stadium to residential and hospitality developments

Multifunctional Tower Tirana by Chybik + Kristof

a project list records architectural work in Albania

hand-drawn studies explore the development of architectural forms and ideas

The Albanian Files: Freedom and Architecture 

project info:

name: The Albanian Files: Freedom and Architecture

editor: Anneke Abhelakh | @anneke__abhelakh

foreword: Edi Rama

design: Haller Brun | @haller_brun

publisher: Lars Müller Publishers | @larsmullerpublishers

This article is part of designboom’s MODES OF HABITATION chapter, exploring how the spaces we inhabit can reshape the ways we live together. Discover more stories rethinking domesticity, shared living, and the many forms a home can take here.

The post the albanian files: two decades of international architecture in a country in transition appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

Artist Won Ji Lim turns the physical logic of the human body into an abstract sculptural vocabulary across her Untitled, Anima-in anima, and We are living in a room series. Her earlier work began with an interest in qualities such as uprightness and bilateral symmetry, treating the body less as an image to reproduce than as a system that could be broken down, rearranged and translated into form. In the Untitled series, recognizable anatomy gives way to controlled compositions structured through proportion, verticality and balance.

Material choices push the sculptures even further from direct representation. Won Ji pairs opaque cement with transparent glass, using their opposing densities, weights and degrees of visibility to build tension within each work. Both materials are shaped through casting, while glass is also melted and reformed in the kiln, allowing the artist to work with a substance that shifts between rigid and fluid states. Color deliberately avoids anatomical associations too, leaving the works to stand — quite literally in some cases — on their own sculptural terms.

Anima-in anima series, Won Ji Lim

HARD OUTSIDE, SOFT INSIDE

As her practice developed, Won Ji’s attention moved from the body’s overall silhouette toward the relationship between its exterior and interior. This contrast becomes central to Anima-in anima and We are living in a room, where rigid outer shells meet softer, less predictable contents. Instead of turning to anatomical materials, the artist looks to ordinary objects capable of carrying the same physical qualities.

Glass bottles and acrylic boxes suggest protective, clearly defined structures, while stockings, sponges, foam, cotton, yarn, bubble wrap, acoustic panels and aqua sticks occupy their interiors with a very different kind of presence. Softness presses against rigidity, transparent surfaces reveal what would normally remain hidden, and familiar household materials begin to feel unexpectedly bodily. Nothing quite resembles an organ or a limb, but the associations are difficult to entirely shake.

We are living in a room series, Won Ji Lim

EVERYDAY MATERIALS TAKE ON A BODY OF THEIR OWN

Across the three series, Won Ji uses casting, stacking, containing, assembling and juxtaposing to reconstruct bodily qualities without illustrating the body itself. Symmetry can become an arrangement of objects; transparency suggests an exposed interior; density and weight stand in for physical mass. The resulting sculptures operate somewhere between formal studies and quietly psychological objects, with ordinary materials made slightly unfamiliar through their new relationships.

The body therefore remains a point of departure rather than a final destination. By translating its rigidity, softness, interiority and balance into glass, cement and found materials, Won Ji Lim creates sculptures that ask viewers to recognize physical sensations without providing an obvious figure to attach them to. A bottle is still a bottle, foam is still foam — but once assembled together, they start behaving like something rather more alive.

Untitled, Won Ji Lim

Untitled, Won Ji Lim

Untitled, Won Ji Lim

Anima-in anima 01, Won Ji Lim

Anima-in anima 02, Won Ji Lim

Anima-in anima 03, Won Ji Lim

We are living in a room 01, Won Ji Lim

We are living in a room 02, Won Ji Lim

We are living in a room 03, Won Ji Lim

project info:

name: Untitled series, Anima-in anima series, We are living in a room series
artist: Won Ji Lim | @zeal.ji_

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: Iñaki Laguardia | designboom

The post won ji lim translates the human body into glass, cement and soft sculptural forms appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

From the outside, Db’s Ramverk Alu is an aluminum suitcase that appears restrained and minimalistic. Broad panels of silver metal run almost uninterrupted across the shell with clean lines and smooth surfaces. Much of its complexity is revealed once the case is opened. Inside, beneath its mesh lining, a network of screws run along the inner frame, custom housings occupy the corners, and the hardware that would usually puncture the exterior has been pulled inward. Across the suitcase, Db developed 369 custom components to make the construction work this way.

‘If you go off the shelf, you have something that is great for someone else’s purpose,‘ co-founder Truls Brataas tells designboom. Standard luggage hardware arrives with its own dimensions and engineering logic already fixed, so the team began drawing many of those pieces itself. The exercise went far beyond hiding rivets. Each fitting had to work structurally while belonging to the same visual system, down to the housings that connect Db’s case to wheels made by Japanese manufacturer Hinomoto. ‘Sometimes these custom parts actually make for a really, really good design,‘ Brataas continues.

the Ramverk Alu case keeps its fastening system behind a clean aluminum shell | images © Db

369 parts behind a clean shell

The outer skin stays relatively free of hardware because so much of the assembly has been pulled to the other side of the aluminum. Inside, those connections remain visible and accessible. The CenterFrame runs through the middle of the case as a structural spine, increasing torsional rigidity and helping absorb impacts, while the EdgeFrame protects the perimeter. Even the trolley handle sits within a unibody aluminum housing designed to strengthen the full handle path.

Ramverk Alu develops a structural idea already present in Db’s Ramverk Pro, where the CenterFrame helped organize the suitcase around a rigid middle section. That framework is made more explicit with aluminum. The position of a hinge affects the frame around it, a wheel housing has to meet the corner cleanly, and even the depth of a fastener determines what remains visible once the shell is closed. Db’s earlier Rib-Cage construction approached soft luggage in a similar way by using internal structure to inform the case’s outward identity.

Truls Brataas describes simplicity as the final stage of a complex design process

an object designed to open again

‘Can you make things easier to repair?‘ Brataas recalls asking during development. In Ramverk Alu, permanent riveted connections are replaced with mechanical fasteners that can be reached with a Phillips screwdriver and a hex key. If a component takes the impact, the case can be opened around that area and the damaged piece addressed independently. Repair starts with access, which means thinking about disassembly while the suitcase is still being designed.

The screws therefore solve two problems at once. They allow the case to come apart later, and their placement helps keep its outer skin free of scattered fasteners. ‘The functions become a really, really nice form,‘ Brataas explains. Inside the suitcase, the mechanism stays visible enough to understand. The repair system becomes part of what the user sees every time the case opens, even if it spends years without being needed.

opening the luggage reveals custom hardware arranged across the inner frame

prototypes to begin

Truls Brataas describes a process that moves repeatedly between physical prototypes and digital models, with rough objects entering the conversation early. A mock-up can expose a problem with proportion long before a finished prototype exists, especially when an apparently small adjustment has consequences elsewhere in the case. The team can then return to the digital model, refine the geometry, and build again. For an object assembled from hundreds of individual pieces, those exchanges become part of the design itself.

Material experiments often begin outside the luggage industry altogether. ‘It’s super interesting when you have a material made for a whole different purpose,‘ Brataas says. Ramverk Alu uses separate aluminum alloys according to the work each section has to perform. A 6061-T5 aluminum CenterFrame runs through the middle of the case and distributes loads, and a 5052-H32 EdgeFrame takes force around the perimeter. Once it’s closed, the distinction disappears into the same silver body.

Db developed 369 components for the rivetless Ramverk Alu construction

scandinavian restraint through engineering

When Brataas talks about Scandinavian design, he comes back to function before appearance. ‘It’s made for a purpose,‘ he explains. ‘You try to make those functions as simple as possible.‘ He connects that attitude with the region’s relationship to nature and with a culture where objects have often been developed around available resources. Minimalism, in that sense, can emerge from asking each element to earn its place.

Ramverk Alu takes that idea somewhere slightly unexpected. Its cleanest surfaces belong to the side that reveals the least about how the suitcase works. When it’s opened, the engineering becomes far more expressive, with screws and custom components tracing the interior almost like a diagram of its own construction. The exterior looks simple because the team designed so much behind it.

screws can be reached from inside using a Phillips screwdriver and hex key

the CenterFrame forms an aluminum spine through the middle of the case

the EdgeFrame moves impact forces around the outer perimeter

custom wheel housings integrate Hinomoto wheels into Db’s own assembly

project info:

name: Ramverk Alu

brand: Db | @dbjourney

founders: Jon Olsson, Truls Brataas

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