Art Architecture Dezign

Outdoor furniture was out in force at the recent Maison& Object and IMM Cologne furniture fairs, as brands responded to a big increase in customer demand. We pick out 10 of the best new designs, including rugs, shelving and a kitchen.

The two fairs saw many established brands launch outdoor furniture collections for the first time, like contemporary Danish brand Muuto, which unveiled the Linear table and bench.

"Venturing into the outdoor furniture category is something that we've been wanting to do for a long time," explained design director Christian Grosen. "The demand has definitely been there," added PR manager Katrin Fieseler.

Response "very positive" to outdoor shelves

It's not only simple tables and seating on offer – many brands are offering furnishings not traditionally found in the garden. One example is heritage brand String, which has adapted its famous shelving system for the outdoors.

"We started to get a lot of requests for bigger shelves that could be used outdoors and we realised that, with some adjustments, the metal range would work perfectly," said Peter Erlandsson, co-owner of String Furniture. "The response was very positive when we launched at IMM."

Rugs "even more important" outdoors

New outdoor textiles are also being developed making it easier than ever to bring soft furnishings into the garden.

According to Nani Marquina, founder of the eponymous rug company, the introduction of textiles has been transformative in garden design.

"As you know, rugs define a room and create different environments while adding warmth and comfort. Thus it's even more important in outdoor environments, where there's an absence of walls and delineated spots," she said.

Here are 10 of the most impressive new designs, picked by editor Amy Frearson:

String Outdoor by Anna von Schewen and Björn Dahlström

The String shelving system is one of the most famous Scandinavian design products of the last century. But now, for the first time in 70 years, Nisse and Kajsa Strinning's modular design is available for the garden as well as the home.

Debuted at IMM Cologne, String Outdoor comes with newly developed shelves in aluzinc – a steel coated with aluminium-zinc – making the product resistant to moisture and rust. Meanwhile the floor panels are hot-dip galvanised to prevent corrosion.

"The material we use requires no additional surface treatment. Should rusting occur, the material has the ability to mend itself and stop the rust from spreading," said String Furniture CEO Jonas Wetterlöf.

Outdoor by Nanimarquina

The first outdoor rug collection from Spanish brand Nanimarquina is designed to "transfer the warmth of interior spaces to outdoors".

Unveiled at Maison&Objet, the collection includes some of the brand's successful indoor designs, like the colour-graduated Shade Palette and Tres Texture ranges. It also features a new design by the brand's eponymous designer Nani Marquina, called Oaxaca, which combines floral and chequered patterns. All of the rugs are made from PET plastic, although they don't look like it.

"We were surprised that PET offered similar aesthetic characteristics to wool, as well as visual and tactile similarities," said Marquina. "PET has the same behaviour as wool in terms of fire resistance, but it provides great water and UV resistance."

Linear by Thomas Bentzen for Muuto

Danish brand Muuto has moved into outdoor furniture with a table and chair set by Copenhagen-based designer Thomas Bentzen, unveiled for the first time at IMM Cologne.

Based on the traditional picnic bench, the Linear collection is made from powder-coated steel, and characterised by clean lines and folded edges. The table top is hot-dip galvanised to make it weather-resistant. It is available in black, cream, brown and green shades.

"The Linear Steel Series has been very much about delving into every singular detail that makes up the design while using the simple lines of Scandinavian design as a guiding principle, to create something that would remain relevant for years to come," explained Muuto design director Christian Grosen.

Patio Fabrics by Karina Nielsen Rios for Kvadrat

Danish textile brand Kvadrat supplies fabrics to many of the world's leading furniture companies, so the launch of its inaugural outdoor textile collection could pave the way for even more designs to be adapted for outdoors.

Developed with Copenhagen-based designer Karina Nielsen Rios, the new Patio fabrics are made with three colours of a highly durable flame-retardant polyester yarn called Trevira CS. They are suitable for all outdoor spaces, even spaces with high-humidity and chlorine like spas and pools.

"In addition to its technical features, it also stands out for a soft touch compared to other outdoor fabrics and offers exceptional colour vibrancy," said Kvadrat.

Indoor-Outdoor by Bodil Kjær, reissued by Carl Hansen & Son

As well as new designs, outdoor furniture models of the past are also being launched. Among the brands doing so is Carl Hansen & Son, which recently added designs by Danish architect Bodil Kjær to its collection.

The Indoor-Outdoor collection is made from warm-toned teak, able to withstand changing weather conditions.

"Teak has a warm reddish-brown colour and, due to its natural oils, is highly durable," said Carl Hansen & Son CEO Knud Erik Hansen. "The wood requires minimal maintenance and takes on a more beautiful colour over time, if you choose not to treat it with oil."

The range was first unveiled in Milan last year, but is now available in stores.

Kettal Outdoor Kitchen

Outdoor furniture brand Kettal has added an outdoor kitchen to its collection, taking cooking al fresco to the next level.

Presented at IMM Cologne, the kitchen is made from aluminium with optional teak cabinet doors. It comes with a sink and a hob, and also provides space for a wine cooler or fridge. A matching trolley can be added, providing transport and additional storage.

Vimini by Patricia Urquiola for Kettal

Kettal's collection also includes a range of wicker furniture designed by Patricia Urquiola.

Launched in Milan last year, the Vimini collection is based on the classic Basket Chair designed by Nanna Ditzel in the 1950s. It combines a curving wicker basket with large colourful cushions and wooden legs.

"I fancied something really traditional, something a bit modernist, relaxed in the way we treated the fibre," said Urquiola. "And the Vimini, the chair with its classic braiding and baskets, is captivating."

Liz by Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba for Expormim

Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor was the inspiration behind this outdoor armchair designed by Italian architects Ludovica Serafini and Roberto Palomba, which Expormim showed at Maison&Objet.

It comprises a tubular metal frame, with fabric stretched over it, plus a fully upholstered cushion and backrest.

"Liz is a project inspired by the flair of the 1950s," said the designers. "The elastic fabric stretching along the metallic tubular structure marks lines and transparencies, giving rise to a play of graphics and lightness that make you feel the soft embrace of Liz."

10th Mazzo di Fiori floor light by Massimo Castagna for Exteta

Italian architect Massimo Castagna has created an entire collection for outdoor brand Exteta, but one of the highlights is this outdoor floor lamp.

Handmade in burnished brass, each light comprises six stems topped with globes of polycarbonate plastic.

Globe Planters by AYTM

Danish brand AYTM has made its bestselling indoor products available for outdoors. The Globe Planters consist of a painted stainless-steel bowl perched on a golden ring base.

Debuted at Maison&Objet, the planters come in a wide variety of sizes and colours, making them suitable for any garden.

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Nissan has released a concept van that doubles as a mobile workshop for woodworkers and craftsmen, with a weatherproof power pack for battery-powered energy.

Created in collaboration with UK-based Studio Hardie, the vehicle's cargo area has been kitted out as a mobile workshop for a woodworking professional.

The van features multiple in-built storage boxes, a retractable work bench with wall-mounted lamp, plus specially designed storage for cables and a full set of tools attached to the inside of the back doors.

"The designs for the tool storage came from years of site work, thinking about how we work, what tool you want where," explained studio founder Will Hardie.

The vehicle's load space includes an integrated touch-screen computer, swivel-seating on floor rails, and LED lighting in the ceiling.

"We decided to create a grid which we could anchor desks, racks and boxes to; this gave the interior a strong and rational form," said Hardie.

"We then played with our three-dimensional lines, adding or taking away to create a functional Mondrian-esque grid."

The main structure of the bespoke conversion is largely completed in "lightweight and strong" pale ash, with birch-faced plywood for the wall panels and boxes for contrast.

To test their ideas, the team initially built plywood and cardboard mock-ups to see how the design would work in the space.

"We often work in far-flung parts of the country and having such a versatile refined workspace that you can use on site is the ideal solution," said Hardie.

The tools are powered with an Energy Roam battery, a silent, emissions-free, weatherproof power pack with a storage capacity of 700 watt-hours, which can provide a maximum power output of one kilowatt.

"Light is really important in a workspace; with the power of the Roam battery we could turn the entire ceiling into a giant light box," added Hardie.

"I love the way that it floods the space with light – it feels a bit like stepping into an art installation."

Energy Roam comprises batteries recovered from Nissan's Leaf electric vehicles that have come to the end of their lives. It will launch in European markets this spring.

The power pack can also be recharged using a solar panel mounted on the roof of the van, making it a fully "off-grid" energy option.

The Nissan NV300 is available in various lengths and heights. Although the concept has not been rolled out for sale, it is intended to highlight how these lightweight commercial vans can be fitted with a bespoke interior to suit various different needs.

Last year, in another departure from its usual ventures, Nissan kitted out a guesthouse in Japan with self-driving slippers that return to the entrance hall at the push of a button.

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American artist Doug Aitken has installed a ranch-style house clad in mirrors in the snow-covered mountains of Gstaad, Switzerland.

The single-storey Mirage structure, so called because it reflects the surrounding landscape and disappears into it, is covered top-to-bottom in mirrors.

The structure will remain in its mountain location for two years "reflecting and interacting with the mountain landscape over the changing seasons".

"Right now it's completely minimal, removed of all colour and definition. It's a whiteout, covered in a blanket of snow right now," Aitken told Dezeen.

"The viewer can come back to the piece as the seasons are changing, in fall in a storm or in the summer when it's a green pasture. As our lives change the artwork is shifting with us."

Visitors can freely explore the mirrored structure, which has an open door. The interior is also mirrored to create a kaleidoscopic refracted effect on entering the house.

The structure is modelled on the Californian ranch houses developed in the 1920s and 1930s that incorporated the ideas of modernist architect Frank Lloyd Wright with the traditional ranch houses of the American West.

Aitken has previously installed Mirage in the desert outside Palm Springs in 2017 and inside a former state bank in Detroit last year. He made slight optical adjustments to the angles of the structure each time it has been erected.

According to Aitken the "utterly generic" style is familiar as the archetypal 20th-century suburban house in the US.For this installation he decided to "embrace the banal as opposed to looking at the regional as exotic," by installing the same style of house in the Alps.

However, here the shape also reflects that of low-lying Alpine buildings, built to withstand heavy snow.

Alpine houses tend to be built in the summer, but Aitken and his team brought the Gstaad house to its location in pieces over the course of three winter months.

Unlike the Detroit installation where artificial light was used to direct how the structure was seen, in the Alpine location, the artist relies on natural light and changing weather to illuminate the piece.

"The work really is the sum of the landscape around it. When you think of art you often think of something much more solid, but Mirage moves in an autonomous way," explained Aitken. "It changes in an almost chameleon-like form."

The installation forms part of Frequencies, a site-specific set of art performances that run from 1 to 3 February 2019 in Gstaad, curated by Neville Wakefield and Olympia Scarry.

Frequencies is the third iteration of the event, called Elevation 1049, following editions in 2014 and 2017.

Photography is by Stefan Altenburger, courtesy of Doug Aitken.

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Swarovski Manufaktur is a rapid-prototyping facility designed by Snøhetta at the crystal producer's campus in Wattens, Austria.

Snøhetta desrcibes the new Swarovski facility as a "crystal workshop for the 21st century". It combines design, product development and manufacture in one building to allow clients to be involved in the prototyping of new items.

"The Swarovski Manufaktur sets a new standard for inclusive fabrication facilities," said Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, founding partner of Snøhetta.

"Bringing clients, designers, artists, researchers, machine operators, technicians and the public into one space under one roof is going to change how we think about these relationships in the future."

The building is part of the redevelopment of the Swarovski campus, which contains the company's factories and the Snøhetta-designed Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal World), which opened in 1995.

Along with Swarovski Manufaktur, a new factory is being built, while a crystal-cutting factory has been refurbished into a product-development building by Schlögl & Süss Architects, called Campus 311.

To make the prototyping process as efficient as possible, the entire production process for Swarovski crystal products was replicated on a smaller scale within the Swarovski Manufaktur building.

As a result, production time for making prototypes has been halved.

The building is arranged around a double-height space, which contains all the machines needed to manufacture prototypes and small runs of crystals.

The factory floor is designed to be flexible, with services under the floor. This means that, as technology advances, machinery can be updated to ensure prototypes can still be made in the shortest time possible in the future.

As light is so important to the designers and manufactures at Swarovski, Snøhetta designed the main manufacturing area to be flooded with daylight.

The entire roof is constructed from a grid of skylights. In total the ceiling has 135 openings arranged on a repetitive six- by three-metre pattern, protected with a solar coating.

"We have tried to understand what makes crystal so special and attractive, and to use these ephemeral qualities to create a specific atmosphere," said Patrick Lüth, managing director of Snøhetta's studio in Innsbruck.

"The space has an incredible amount of daylight penetration, which we believe is unparalleled in the typical production facility context. Crystals only come to life with light, so for us it is the intense presence of that daylight that is the most important aesthetic aspect of this building."

The ground floor also contains a cafe, while offices, showrooms and presentation rooms are all placed on a wooden first floor, which is suspended from the ceiling and has views over the manufacturing space.

Swarovski Manufaktur is accessed from the adjoining Campus 311 via a bridge connected to this first floor. A large timber staircase, which is also designed to be a meeting space, leads down from this entrance to the workshop.

Originally from Norway, Snøhetta also has offices in the US and France, as well as Austria.

The firm recently completed two matching elevated cabins at two of Norway's largest hospitals. It is also working on a controversial overhaul of Philip Johnson's AT&T Building in New York and designing an island campus for students in Budapest.

Photography is by David Schreyer.

Project credits:

Architecture: Snøhetta
Interior architecture: Snøhetta
Lighting: Martin Klingler, Sally Story
HVAC:ATP Architekten Ingenieure
Electrical engineer: ATP Architekten Ingenieure
Structural engineer: Baumann + Obholzer
Building physics engineer: Spektrum

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Studio Mabb used a humble material palette of plaster, timber, and iron to fashion the rustic interiors of this eatery in Brescia, Italy.

The restaurant sits directly next to Palazzo Martinengo art museum and has been designed by Studio Mabb to feature an array of natural hues.

Offering a relaxed menu of beer, burgers and pizza, the restaurant takes its name from the Latin term ganea – a tavern or rest stop where travellers on long journeys could stop for refreshments.

While the adjacent 16th-century museum building features grandiose exhibition spaces with frescoed ceilings, the studio wanted the interiors of the eatery to have an overall more simple aesthetic with a "particularly earthy component".

"La Ganea is a project in which the venue gives life to the history of the place," Studio Mabb added.

As extensive changes were not able to be made to the historic fabric of the 200-square-metre building, existing walls have been kept in place and washed with a lime-based plaster.

Wiring is concealed inside black iron pipes that snake up and away from the walls, ending with exposed light bulbs that illuminate tables underneath. Iron has also be used to form a chunky bar counter, shelving unit for liquor bottles, and to frame a series of arched windows that look through into a garden.

Sandblasted wooden beams have been affixed to the ceiling, while handmade tiles have been applied across the floors – the studio hopes their slightly worn patina will enhance the aged appearance of the restaurant.

There are also two cosy side rooms where small groups of diners can intimately gather around long timber tables. A selection of books, maps, vintage trinkets, and glazed ceramic pots have been used to dress the space.

Architect Guillaume Terver also opted for a natural material palette when completing the interiors of a ceramics shop in Brittany, France, which boasts clay, granite and timber surfaces – it connects to a Japanese cafe, which Terver dressed with similarly simple oak furnishings.

Photography is by Carola Merello.

Project credits:

Interior architecture: Studio Mabb
Project architects: Andrea Baselli, Sara Magnone, Riccardo Belinci

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Jenn Chang heads up the architecture department of New York-based co-living startup Common. In this interview for the Dezeen Jobs careers guide, she explains how she got there.

Chang moved into architecture after initially studying economics. She started her career in the office of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, but cut her teeth in a five-year stint with New York firm SHoP Architects, working on high-profile projects like the American Copper Buildings.

An interest in the opportunities for innovation in architecture led her to Common.

"Coming from the architecture world, I wasn't really aware of job opportunities outside the firms that I had heard of. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that a cool startup would be looking for someone with my experience," she said.

Chang said the work culture at Common is "fast-paced, engaged and, most of all, interesting".

"Architecture and design regularly interacts with real estate, marketing, cleaning, finance and tech teams," she said.

When asked to give advice for those starting out, Chang stresses how useful it is to proactively network outside of the architecture industry. "Talking to a broader range of people has exposed me to greater possibilities" she revealed.

She suggested people shouldn't be afraid of taking an unusual route to their dream job.

"The modern career path is more like rock-climbing as opposed to a ladder."

Read the interview on Dezeen Jobs ›

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