Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

Now here’s a match made in heaven. The Cal Flame G5000 from Cal Spas combines a cocktail table with a firepit on the inside, making cleanup as easy as pushing all your trash, uneaten food and whatever else you don’t feel like cleaning up into the center where it will get incinerated. Genius!! Of course convenience like this comes at a price, $6,900 to be exact, but think to yourself, would you rather have almost $7,000 in your pocket or would you rather have to do the dishes every night? I think the answer is pretty clear.

[ Cal Flame G5000 ] VIA [ Born Rich ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Say what you will about George Lucas and his merchandising empire, but I have to give them credit for realizing how important their fans are and not always having a knee-jerk lawsuit reaction to every single Star Wars homage. Like this custom ‘Han Solo frozen in carbonite’ desk created by Tom Spina Designs. While there’s not a terrible amount of information on their site about it, I’m pretty sure it’s not an officially licensed Star Wars product since it was actually created as a custom one-off design for one of their clients.

Oh and FYI, while it’s a nice design and all, I’m not a fan of glass top desks because there’s always the chance of this happening.

[ Tom Spina Designs - Han Solo Frozen In Carbonite Desk ] VIA [ Make ]

By Evan Ackerman

No matter how many branches you pile on the floor of your living room, you’re not likely to make yourself a comfy chair. As it turns out, the reason for this is simply that you’re not using big enough branches… If you use a branch big enough that you can see its individual cells, and you carve it into a block, and then use magic to make it squishy, you end up with what looks to be a spectacularly comfortable chair.

Yu-Ying Wu’s “Breathing Chair” is, indeed, based on plant cells. The bigger cells are more flexible than the smaller cells, so when you sit in it, the carefully calculated network naturally forms an arm chair. It’s made out of a 100% environmentally friendly foam plastic that’s sproingy enough to give you a little boost as you stand up, too. The chair received a Red Dot Design Award earlier this year, which could mean that someone’s going to pick it up for production.

VIA [ Core77 ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Imagine you crossed your desk at work with one of those Razor scooters, I think the results would look something like this Mobile Desk which I absolutely want for my next trade show. It’s got a bicycle seat and a small tray for holding a laptop when you’re being productive, but each leg features a wheel allowing you to roll around the office without ever having to get up. Surprisingly there’s a two-seater version as well, but with a price tag of $1,000 I’m going to stick with the more affordable $500 single rider model.

[ Mobile Desk ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Created by design studio MAEZM (whose website appears to be over its allocated traffic limit) the Sofa-Dress is essentially a foam cover designed to sit atop a horribly uncomfortable wooden or metal chair, making the sitting experience feel slightly less uncomfortable. It’s a clever idea, and with some more substantial foam or padding it could actually bring relief to thousands of school kids or press conference attendees all over the world.

[ yatzer - Studio MAEZM ] VIA [ Freshome ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It looks like Ambient Lounge has managed to do the impossible by making a bean bag chair that wouldn’t look out of place even in the most hoity-toity of living rooms. Usually reserved for dorm rooms or tech startups trying to look hip, bean bag chairs don’t exactly exude class, but it turns out all you have to do is make them out of real leather (in mahogany, black or cream color) with stitched paneling, offer an optional matching ottoman (an extra $242) and charge in the neighborhood of $570.

[ Fiorenze Sofa ] VIA [ Luxury Housing Trends ]

By Andrew Liszewski

It may not recline like a La-Z-Boy, but the Athena sofa from Switzerland-based Artanova makes up for it with an integrated multimedia PC controlled by a couple of LCD displays that pop out of each armrest. It’s also got an iPod/iPhone dock (but what sofa doesn’t these days?) and will play your music over a set of hidden speakers which includes an 8-inch subwoofer. The best feature though is that the Athena as a sofa actually features a rather nice design, and I don’t think most people would mind having one in their living room. Except that most people probably aren’t willing to drop $15,436 on what essentially becomes a Doritos crumb receptacle.

[ Artanova ] VIA [ Freshome ]

By Andrew Liszewski

In an effort to improve the quality of their meetings, and to ensure they always ended on time, advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy’s London office commissioned ico design (in collaboration with Sidekick Studios) to create the Timetable. The table helps the participants better manage a meeting by making everyone aware of the passing time with a series of illuminated panels.

At the start of a meeting you twist a dial to set the desired amount of time, and as the meeting progresses the light-up panels, which each represent a tenth of the alloted time, will be switched off one by one. When all the panels are off, a polite voice will inform those in attendance that the meeting is now over, and while they don’t have to go home, they can’t stay here.

[ ico design - Timetable ] VIA [ LIMITEDHYPE ]

By Chris Scott Barr

I’ll admit to being a Mac user, but I’m an equal-opportunity geek, so I have several Windows machines as well. Mac users tend to get a reputation for needing things that are trendy and fashionable to go with their computers. That’s not the case with any of the people I know, but companies like SmartDesks aren’t helping matters by releasing products like the MacTable.

Here is a table specially designed for iMacs (though thankfully the table is compatible with Windows PCs), which basically means there’s a hole in it. The hole is the perfect size to hold an iMac, so that the bottom of the screen is flush with the table. Brilliant, now you’ve taken something that’s perfectly eye-level and dropped it by around 6 inches or so. I’ve used stations where you had to stare down at the computer the entire time, and they are not comfortable at all. I’m sure that some hip school will buy these and all of their kids will complain of neck pains. Awesome.

[ SmartDesks ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]