Dezeen promotion: Italian kitchen brand Cesar has unveiled a wall unit by design studio Garcia Cumini that aims to creatively furnish unused wall space in kitchens and living rooms.
Named Dressup, the cabinet is a modular wall system that was designed to be placed in any room in a home.
Top: volumes can be used in different combinations. Above: the shelving was finished in black
The concept for the unit was informed by traditional storage drawers. Garcia Cumini wanted to move from the use of a horizontal structure and apply the storage drawer concept to a vertical unit.
Dressup measures 22 centimetres in depth and can be arranged and constructed in a variety of combinations to best suit the spaces it is in.
It can be fitted with glass doors
The interchangeable system and door frames are available in a number of finishes, including ribbed aluminium, black, champagne and bronze.
Splashbacks for the kitchen settings come in different Cesar finishes such as melamine, lacquer, ceramic, marble and aggregates.
The unit can be placed in kitchens
The Dressup Line also comes with splashback options that can be paired with shelving units, creating an all-in-one integrated kitchen solution.
The system provides storable space for kitchen accessories and utensils and is suitable for daily use without compromising worksurface space.
Dressup was informed by storage drawers
Larger units were designed to incorporate panels that contain still-life artworks by photographer Zaira Zarotti.
Zarotti created vintage-inspired compositions that captured flowers and floral arrangements for its Dressup Art Collection.
Units have panels to display artwork
The works were photographed in a way that allows the image to be rotated and repositioned both horizontally and vertically.
In place of the art pieces, mirrors can be used to create a further illusion of space.
To learn more about Cesar and to view its products visit the brand's website.
Partnership content
This article was written by Dezeen for Cesar as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.
Dezeen Showroom: US textile manufacturer Ultrafabrics has launched UF Select, a collection of upholstery fabrics that pays homage to traditional Mexican handicrafts.
The UF Select range is crafted in collaboration with a local manufacturing team and designed to "joyfully and boldly explore colours, patterns and textures".
UF Select fabrics pay homage to traditional Mexican handicrafts
"We were very selective when seeking out a mill partner, hence the name UF Select," said Jennifer Hendren, Ultrafabrics' senior director of product development.
"Similar to our deep connection with our manufacturing team and culture in Japan, UF Select has an equally meaningful connection and inspiration with our partners in Mexico."
Some of the fabrics emulate woven linen
The range includes two styles of synthetic fabric in different colourways. The first, called Lino, emulates woven linen and is available in pared-back neutral shades.
The second style, named Montage, is designed to offer a weathered leather look and is available in warm reddish hues and other shades influenced by nature.
All of the fabrics have been developed to withstand regular cleaning, making them ideally suited to upholstery.
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The Edison table is known for its industrial aesthetic, and features a base structure that is composed of four overlapping and interlocking steel pipes.
According to Cassina, designer Magistretti modelled the table's design on a Milanese gas plant infrastructure.
Cassina has updated and reissued Vico Magistretti's Edison table
"Magistretti said that 'one of the most elegant systems to connect four steel pipes is the one used in gas plants, with a simple cross-shaped joint in cast iron'," Cassina said.
"And so, in the mid-1980s, the table with a name inspired by the historic Milanese gas company Edison was born," the brand explained.
The glass tabletop retains focus on the support structure
Cassina's redesign, which was carried out with the Vico Magistretti Foundation, involved updating the measurements and materials of the table to offer a more contemporary look and help draw attention to the tubular support structure.
This involved only reintroducing tabletops in clear glass, rather than opaque materials, and manufacturing the base from steel that is painted in a matt black or orange shade called becco d'oca.
The glass top, which is 15 millimetres thick, is available in a rectangular, square, or round shape.
About Dezeen Showroom:Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen's huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.
Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.
French studio Amelia Tavella Architectes renovated and extended a 15th-century convent on the island of Corsica, adding a perforated copper volume.
Built in 1480, the part-ruined Saint-Francois Convent is positioned on a hill overlooking a village and mountainous landscape.
Amelia Tavella Architectes added a copper extension to the convent
Prior to the renovation, the structure had become overgrown with greenery and its stone walls were eroding and crumbling.
Amelia Tavella Architectes looked to preserve the history and essence of the convent by adding a perforated copper extension that adjoined its ruined walls.
The copper extension adjoins the ruined stone walls
"I chose to keep the ruins and replace the torn part, the phantom part, in copper work which will become the House of the Territory," said studio founder Amelia Tavella.
"The ruins are marks, vestiges, imprints, they also tell the foundations and a truth, they were beacons, cardinal points, directing our axes, our choices, our volumes."
The studio replicated existing architectural features in the addition
The building is currently used as a cultural centre for the nearby town.
Its new copper extension houses an exhibition room on its ground floor, a cultural space on its first, and a media library and children's spaces on the second.
The new volume was designed to follow the plan of the existing building, following the form of the stone wing.
Large arched openings on its ground floor were placed along the exterior of the copper volume and mimic the symmetry of the convent.
Copper was chosen for its weathering properties
The studio explained copper was chosen for the extension for its transforming and weathering properties which, like the ruins, will tell a "story" over time.
"I liked the idea of a possible return to ruin, that the copper could be undone - this possibility is a courtesy, a respect, to the past, to Corsican heritage," said the studio.
The walls of the extension are perforated
The walls of the copper volume were perforated with small squares that allow light to filter through the walls into the interior corridors.
Light is reflected off the copper through the corridors and onto the stone walls like a "stained glass window of a church".
The copper reflects light through the stone arcade
Architect Jane Hall's Woman Made book celebrates the work of over 200 women designers from the past century. The author picks 10 items designed by lesser-known women from the book.
Illustrated with images of objects made by female designers, including Zaha Hadid and Ray Eames, Hall's book charts 100 years of work using a simple A-Z structure that focuses on one product per designer.
Woman Made: Great Women Designers includes designers from over 50 countries around the world and with products made by both household names and lesser-known women.
"I wanted it to be as far-reaching as possible in a way that a lot of other books of the same ilk don't really offer or don't really attempt to do," Hall told Dezeen.
"Often these narratives can end up being a little bit one-sided, or just creating a well-known history of women that already exists, so hopefully there are quite a few surprises in this book," said the designer.
Hall is co-founder of Turner Prize-winning architecture studio Assemble. Below, she chooses 10 projects by women designers from her book, most of whom she believes are relatively unknown.
Photo by Soft Geometry
Elio light, 2020, by Utharaa Zacharias
"Originally from Kochi in southern India, co-founder of Soft Geometry, Utharaa Zacharias moved to New Delhi to study product design at the National Institute of Fashion Technology, where she met co-founder, Palaash Chaudhary.
"Describing New Delhi as 'ripe with inspiration, materials, tools, and ingenuity', Zacharias and Chaudhary went on to study furniture design at the Savannah College of Art and Design in the US. The Elio Light was inspired by a photo series capturing the interplay between light and transparency on glass, water, skin, and even dust."
Photo by hedwig-bollhagen.de
Watering can, 1955, by Hedwig Bollhagen
"At 20 years old while still a student at a technical college, Hedwig Bollhagen became the supervisor of an entire department of 'paint girls' in a stoneware ceramics factory near Berlin.
"Bollhagen created simple, affordable ceramics and in 1934 became the artistic director of a ceramic workshop previously owned by Bauhaus ceramicist Margarete Heymann-Loebenstein.
"The ceramic 766 Watering Can is notable for its absence of a handle, instead featuring two ergonomic indentations. Despite her influential legacy, Bollhagen herself described her work as 'just pots'."
Photo by Archivo Privato Gegia Bronzini
Striped fabric, 1964, by Gegia Bronzini
"Gegia Bronzini, fascinated by the work of the female farmers in Marocco, Venice, was inspired to purchase a loom and went on to found a small weaving school there.
"She began experimenting with colour and texture, incorporating unusual materials such as broom bristles and corn husks into natural silk and linen yarns.
"The heavy silk seen here features bands of horizontal stripes in rich hues. Described in 2020 by Domus magazine as a "textile diva," Bronzini also designed furniture for notable Italian designers including Ico and Luisa Parisi."
Photo by Modest Furniture / Arne Jennard
Karelia easy chair, 1966, by Liisi Beckman
"Finnish designer Liisi Beckmann is somewhat of a mystery. Although she moved to Milan in 1957 and established a successful career designing for Italian design firms, her designs remain mostly invisible, with the exception of the Karelia easy chair designed for Zanotta in 1966.
"Its undulating form of expanded polyurethane foam covered in vinyl is inspired by the coves of Karelia in Finland where Beckmann grew up. Beckmann's designs from this period are now held in the Helsinki Design Museum."
Photo by Design by Leva Kaleja
Milo chair, 2018, by Marie Burgos
"Marie Burgos's furniture designs and product line are inspired by her appreciation of mid-century design and the aesthetics of both the natural landscape and built environment of the Caribbean island of Martinique, her ancestral home.
"A certified master in feng shui, Burgos pairs opposites, such as clean lines with curves, hard textures with soft, to achieve a sense of balance. The Milo Chair, for example, combines handcrafted wood legs with raspberry-hued velvet upholstery; its plush, curvy form is suggestive of a hug."
Photo by Kartell US
Componibili modular storage system,1967, by Anna Castelli Ferrieri
"Anna Castelli Ferrieri was heavily influenced by European architecture circles; she helped to organise the Congrès Internationale d'Architecture Moderne (CIAM) 1949 meeting and edited the architectural and product design magazine Casabella.
"She began working for the Italian postwar Neo-Rationalist Franco Albini, whom she called her 'maestro', and his partner, Franca Helg.
"She was the first woman to graduate in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano and founded the plastic furniture fabrication company Kartell. Many of her designs are still in production, including the popular Componibili Modular Storage System."
Photo by Eliseu Cavalcante
Dune collection, 2017, by Lisa Ertel
"The Dune collection, described by designer Lisa Ertel as a family of archaic seating, is made from solid spruce wood, sandblasted to create a textured surface throwing the wood's grain into relief. This transforms the annual rings of a tree that reveal its age into a tactile surface.
"The German-born designer based the forms of Dune on traditional German Ruhsteine, stone benches placed on the side of roads where historically travellers would stop to rest and was designed while Ertel was still a student of product design at the State College of Design Center for Art and Media."
Photo by Hannah Whitaker
Kenny dining table, 2018, by Egg Collective
"Egg Collective began through informal weekly dinner meetings between its three founders, Stephanie Beamer, Crystal Ellis, and Hillary Petrie. The trio chose the name Egg Collective to symbolise the group's creative design incubation while also referencing a naturally occurring sculptural form.
"All of their woodwork is fabricated, finished, and assembled in-house at their base in New York.
"Core designs like the Kenny Dining Table establish confident forms that are then iterated using a variety of materials, such as the walnut top and base seen here. The group frequently promotes the work of women in the industry, as organisers of the exhibition Designing Women for the non-profit arts organization NYCxDESIGN."
Photo by Blend Interiors
Counter stool, c 1970s, by Cleo Baldon
"Cleo Baldon was already the owner of a successful landscape design business, Galper-Baldon Associates, before she founded a sister company, Terra, to manufacture furniture to accompany some of the 3,000 swimming pools she herself designed across Southern California.
"Baldon drew on the ubiquitous Spanish colonial motifs of Los Angeles, combining wrought natural wood and leather upholstery, as seen in these typical Counter Stools."
Photo by George Nakashima Woodworkers
Concordia chair, 2003, by Mira Nakashima
"Mira Nakashima's pieces celebrate the knots and idiosyncrasies found in timber, reflecting the dictum of her father, George Nakashima, that there is a perfect and singular piece of wood for each design. Nakashima inherited her father's woodworking studio in 1990 after studying architecture in Tokyo.
"Her approach has introduced more angles and curves to the work of Nakashima Studios, which continues to be based on the craft-based traditions of her father with the richness and texture of wood still very much in evidence. The walnut Concordia Chair was created for a group of local chamber musicians."
