The newest creation from Kayiwa Oy, called Faith, can be used as a single candelabrum, a walking stick rack or a flower vase. And those are just a few of its uses!

You can get Faith in black, red or white porcelain and glass.  As a candle holder, you can also get it in gold and silver.

Whatever you use it for, it certainly makes a great statement.

I was researching for design in Argentina when I found about Dominique Besanson here. She is an art director and photographer, who works with fabrics residues to make jewelry and accessories.

The products are sold at Etsy , and I think they are  great Christmas gifts!

Heller is now on 2Modern.com! For about 35 years, Heller has offered leading designers the opportunity to work with new technologies to create innovative products. Heller products are in design collections worldwide including the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Louvre Museum of Decorative Arts. From classics such as the Bocca Sofa, the Capitello Chair, & the Joe Bench, to the prize winning Bellini Chair, to a line designed by reknowned architect Frank Gehry (featuring the Frank Gehry Sofa, the Frank Gehry Coffee Table, & the Frank Gehry Easy Chair), Heller furniture brings you objects consistenly blurring the boundaries of functionalism & design.

I want to introduce Judith Seng, a Berlin-based designer. Judith studied at Berlin’s University of Arts and is a risk taker. Objects in Seng’s diverse portfolio reflect a negotiation between flaws and perfection.  Glassblowers transform undesirable air bubbles into decorative elements on drinking glasses. How fascinating!

Hide and Show
Clothing framework

Fingerbowl
Each bowl is a negative, 3-dimensional imprint of the individual finger. To
    consciously give somebody one’s personal fingerprint is a matter of
    trust and empathy. Transformed into a gift, it is mirroring a political issue
    in an aesthetic gesture.

Starlette Christmas Ornament
Each of these hand-engraved glass balls is uniquely decorated. The concept
    is based on the formation of uncontrollable bubbles, a frequent mistake arising
    in the glass production process. Thus the decor never repeats itself. Each
    time it is newly defined by the craftsman using our ‘program’
    of established design parameters. According to the bubbles found in the balls,
    the craftsman can choose between three programs: ‘One Star’, ‘Two
    Stars’ and ‘Olives’
    The design was developed during an ongoing research residency aiming at redefining
    traditional glass decoration techniques at the glass research center CIAV
    Meisenthal in France.

Textile Chandelier
The chandelier was exhibited in the New National Gallery of Berlin shop in
    2007 during the exhibition ‘Die schönsten Franzosen kommen aus
    New York’, as well as at the Museum der Dinge in Berlin.
You can view more of Judith’s work on www.judithseng.de
Judith Seng via ID Magazine.

An old-fashioned turn table, a dozen old records, a pile of plastic toys, miscelleanous adhesives, and a bright strobe light. These are the elements that Olexander Gnilitsky and Lesja Zajac, members of the artist collective the Institution of Unstable Thoughts, transform into fantastic displays of stroboscopic animation that they perform live in front of an audience. Thankfully you can also see them

As the record spins, the strobe light flashes rhtymically, creating a series of bright movie frames that reveal the plastic objects coming to life as they progrssively bend, fold, and march like soliders across the record. As this happens, the artists take turns playing DJ on another turn table, creating a cinematic score for the stop motion animation that is unfolding before the audience’s eyes.

What is most startling about this work, is that Gnilitsky and Zajac create ephemeral 3d digital effects without using any digital equipment. Their work is a reverse engineering of sophisticated 3d digital effects into a every day mechanical components which they reveal to their audience during their performances. By deconstructing the phenomenon of animation, the artists pay homage to the zoetrope and other early cinematic devices, but then give it a modern spin. Pun intended.

Gnilitsky and Zajac treat their unique animation process like open source software. Last year the artists gave a workshop entitled, “Visual Vinyl”, as part of a six-week residency hosted by the Outpost for Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, in which they taught other artists how to make their own stop motion records using a stroboscope. The Institution of Unstable Thoughts have since taken thier show on their road, currently traveling through Europe. It just might be worth a trip to see them, but if not their work can be seen on YouTube or right here.

The Dornbusch church is located in a residential area in the north of Frankfurt. As this 60 year-old church building was fast deteriorating along with the attendance of its church services, city and church officials were talking about its complete demolition and construction of a small „prayer room“ as a replacement. After some planning studies, it was decided that the best choice would be a partial demolition. And the Frankfurt architectural practice of Meixner Schlüter Wendt Architekten were the ones to get the go-ahead for the project.

From an urban planning point of view, a spatially and functionally intact ensemble remained – consisting of a community centre, a „residual church“ as the architects called it and a tower. Also a new churchyard with a great potential for public use, was created. What remained of the old church? The spacious area around the altar and the choir helped form the new one. The open side of the existing building, caused by the demolition work, was closed with a new façade. This new wall is marked with the outlines and moulds of the “old” church, so that the structures which were removed – such as the old entrance, altar and gallery – now form a sculpted structure out of the flat wall surface.

Further factors contributing to the final form are light, modern construction features, and the access to the remaining building. The perception of surface and space is very intense in the inside of the church. The impression of a form as a reference to something which is apparently absent is sensed everywhere and is coherent with the transcendental nature of religion. The identity of the location is transformed. The history of the site remains alive in the memory of the congregation – for everybody else, an impression and thus a picture of a church is communicated which is in a transient state between substantiality and abstraction. An enigmatic lack of dimensions results. The outlines of the demolished church are painted on the churchyard, like a ground plan to stimulate the imagination of pedestrians. It also reminded me of the way foundations of old historic churches are marked in many Northenr European countries.

Further comparisons with everyday situations such as playing fields and motor vehicle practice sites are consciously contrasted with the sacred atmosphere of the church. The new façade is a mixed construction (reinforced concrete and masonry): the plasterwork surface corresponds with the plasticity of the concept. Inside, there is a central activity area which is united as a dark, warm-coloured band in order to integrate the original stained glass windows – of which the congregation is particularly fond.

The new entrance façade contrasts the the north wall with its light colours. Furniture such as the altar, the pulpit, storage boxes, and seating are integrated into this colour concept. In contrast to their heavy appearance, all elements are moveable, and, in connection with the different walls (serene, colourful, sculptured), completely different church service atmospheres can be presented to the congregation, much like a stage setting for a theatre play. The whole project was so impressive that it was awarded the First Prize in the World Architecture Festival in the category of Religion and Contemplation.