Dolmen Shelter is a fictional boutique hotel with stone-shaped guest suites

Creative duo Davit and Mary Jilavyan created the renderings of this imaginary hotel after seeing an insignificant rock feature near their Moscow home. 

Dolmen Shelter would be a boutique hotel composed of guest cabins shaped like rough-hewn stones. The project is meant to be loosely evocative of dolmens – ancient megalithic structures composed of huge upright and horizontal rocks.

Although many dolmens are assumed to be tombs or burial chambers, archaeologists are largely unaware of who erected them or why.

The guest cabins of Dolmen Shelter would be shaped like huge stones

Siblings Davit Jilavyan and Mary Jilavyan came up with the concept for the imaginary getaway after they took a walk through their housing complex in Moscow, which includes a small communal courtyard.

"Our courtyard has a landscape composition of three stones – we never paid much attention to it, but somehow we stopped walking during the day and started looking at this composition of stones and the idea of our dolmens came to our mind," the pair told Dezeen.

"The view from our window [in Moscow] is very depressing... our personal projects are a way to escape from the dullness of our environment."

Each cabin would be fronted by a heavy black door

Guests would enter their cabins via a heavy, black-framed doorway. The interior would be made to look much like the craggy inside of a cave, with surfaces rendered in a coarse, beige-coloured plaster.

Rather than standard sofas and chairs, there would be cosy seating nooks carved out of the walls and plump beanbags scattered across the floor.

"We believe that in such place people could really abstract from their current nervous lifestyles and concentrate on themselves and their inner voices...and give themselves the rest they deserve," the pair added.

Inside, the cabins would be designed to look like caves

The Jivyans also decided that the cabins would only have a couple of tiny windows, claiming they are "tired of modern house projects which look like an aquarium with four sides of glass".

Light would instead come from a wood burner and tiny lamps fitted in a series of alcoves. The exterior of the cabins would also be fitted with "ominous" red lights that glow at night, a feature that Davit and Mary Jilavyan hope will nod to the mystery surrounding dolmens and their origin.

Seating nooks and wood burners would foster a cosy ambience

Dolmen Shelter hotel isn't the only destination dreamed up by Davit and Mary Jilavyan. Earlier this year, they revealed renderings of Sonora Art Village – a fictitious residential community that would be situated on a sun-scorched site in Mexico, populated by a medley of orange, yellow, green and hot-pink houses.

The creative duo had been spurred on to envision the brightly hued village after being stuck inside during the global coronavirus lockdown.

"We wanted to create a place where people can come and feel for a while in a completely different place, far from the grey reality."

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Beate Karlsson uses silicone to make claw shoes and wearable replicas of Kim Kardashian's bum

Self-professed "mother of silicone" Beate Karlsson uses the rubbery material to make shoes in the form of human claws and padded shorts that imitate Kim Kardashian's bum in a bid to design never-before-seen items.

The Claw shoes, which have been 3D printed from a mixture of wood fibres and silicone, take the form of a giant human hand propped up on all four fingers and thumb in the gesture of an animal's claw.

Straps moulded from silicone extend from the top of the shoe to form a sandal that the model can walk in, wearing the claws like stilts.

Bows tied across the top of the shoes conceal the wearer's foot to feed the illusion that they are extensions of their legs.

Karlsson's Claw shoes take the form of a giant human hand propped up in a claw gesture

The shoes form part of Karlsson's ongoing project titled X-treme Products, which has seen her create various wearable, tongue-in-cheek items for a hypothetical world determined by the idea of "otherness".

The Swedish artist and designer takes literal shapes, like a hand, and distorts them until they are almost unrecognisable before turning them into a functional object.

The Claw shoes have been 3D printed from a mixture of wood fibres and silicone

In addition to the Claw shoes, Karlsson has designed other footwear called Fat Baby Shoes that mimic giant feet in frilly sliders.

Other designs include oversized items of clothes worn as one garment, like an enlarged pair of trousers that rise up to the model's neck, and a giant top that extends down to the wearer's knees and features a large drip-effect collar.

The Bum is a wearable replica of Kim Kardashian's bum made from silicone

As part of a separate but similar project, called The Bum, Karlsson created a wearable replica of reality star Kardashian's bum, which often makes its way into mainstream media headlines, with perhaps the most famous example being her cover for Paper Magazine that "broke the internet".

Due to the excess of images online of Kardashian's near-naked posterior, Karlsson was able to work with fellow artists Ida Jonsson and Simon Saarinen to create a scaleable version of it in silicone.

The playful, rubbery design can be worn like padded shorts to create the effect of having a bum like that of the American TV star.

Karlsson's fashion designs include oversized versions of singular garments

Karlsson describes her work as "fictional fashion". Her intention, she told Dezeen, is to create pieces that "belong in a future imaginary world where there are less norm-driven preconceptions".

"I've been quite passive towards the fashion industry, as the value of design in many ways has been lost in my opinion," said the artist. "I think I'm part of a group of young designers who feel that imitation has replaced innovation, much due to the consumer society."

"Therefore, my biggest quest has been to seek otherness and actual innovation when I design," she continued. "I'm not saying I am creating revolutionary pieces, but I strive to not create designs that are recognisable, since I think that's what's interesting about being a designer."

"I hope it conveys something new and conscious and that it together with other young designers reshapes the landscape of the industry."

The Bum can be worn like a pair of padded shorts

Drawn to silicone for its flexibility, durability and ability to be used for a vast range of applications, Karlsson now uses the material almost exclusively in her work.

"I absolutely love silicone! I have always been passionate about handcrafting in clay," she told Dezeen. "For me, it's the best way to communicate a three-dimensional design. You can get an exact shape and there are no limitations if you can master the craft yourself."

"Silicone is amazing because you can make moulds from your clay figures, and it is a durable material," she added. "So, it's been great when crafting things like shoes that have to be flexible and strong."

Karlsson aims to create a sense of "otherness" in her designs

The Stockholm-born artist, who is currently based in Florence, Italy, works as a designer for fashion label Pyer Moss and is creative director at clothing brand AVAVAV. Her quirky designs have been noticed and requested by artists like American rappers Rico Nasty and Tierra Whack.

Other designers have also turned to silicone for its flesh-like appearance, including Elissa Lacoste, who used the material to create a series of "grotesque" peachy-toned furniture.

Montreal-based fashion designer Ying Gao created two robotic dresses from iridescent, rosy-hued materials such as silicone and organza fabric.

The garments respond to their surrounding environment by feeding data to a series of actuators and magnets interlaced with silicone, which cause the fabrics to ripple, expand and contract as if they are alive.

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Watch our talk with Japanese design studio YOY for Rado Design Week

Dezeen speaks to Japanese design studio YOY about its collaboration with watch brand Rado in the first talk as part of Rado Design Week. Tune in from 12:00pm London time.

Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs speaks to Naoki Ono and Yuki Yamamoto, the founders of the Tokyo-based studio, about their special edition of Rado's True Square watch, which was exclusively revealed earlier today in a video filmed by Dezeen at their studio in Tokyo.

To create the watch, which is called Undigital, YOY drew from digital watch faces in order to create a design that merges the analogue and digital.

Naoki Ono and Yuki Yamamoto, founders of YOY

Using Rado's high-tech ceramic material, the designers created a minimal black watch contrasted by a set of bright white dials influenced by the classic seven-segment displays of digital watches.

"As everything in the world, including watches, becomes digital, we wanted to explore the curious opposite: transforming a digital thing into an analogue one," the designers explained in the video unveiling the watch, which we published earlier today.

YOY, founded by Ono and Yamamoto onboard a flight to Milan Design Week in 2011, is a design studio specialising in furniture design, lighting and interior design.

The studio's work sits between space and object and attempts to have a sense of humour about itself. It has previously designed a chair that looks like a two-dimensional artwork and a lamp that uses projected light to create the impression of a shade.

"We value humour in our design and everyone at Rado immediately understood our intentions," the designers stated in the video.

Fairs, Ono and Yamamoto will also be joined by Rado's CEO Adrian Bosshard, who will give an insight into the Rado brand and why it chose to work with the Japanese duo.

Adrian Bosshard, CEO of Rado

Joining Rado as CEO in June 2020, Bosshard has previously been CEO to Rado's sister brand Certina for the past 17 years.

Rado Design Week is a week-long collaboration between the Swiss watch brand and Dezeen, which sees the reveal of four unique versions of its True Square timepiece created by a roster of international designers including YOY, Tej Chauhan, Formafantasma and Thukral&Tagra.

Every day throughout the week Dezeen will also broadcast a live conversation between Fairs, Bosshard and one of the designers. The week concludes with a competition that gives Dezeen readers the chance to win one of the watches from the collection.

The event marks a pivotal moment for Rado, which started out in a workshop in Switzerland's Lengnau district back in 1917. Although the brand often hosts events to launch its new watches, this is its first virtual design week.

You can check out the schedule for the week here.

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Shenzhen Natural History Museum has meandering form that mimics flow of rivers

Architecture studios B+H Architects, 3XN and Zhubo Design have revealed the design for a natural history museum that will be built in Shenzhen, China.

The three studios' competition-winning project, which is entitled Delta, was designed to have a curved, flowing shape that resembles the flowing form of a river.

Shenzhen Natural History Museum was designed to resemble a river's path

B+H Architects, 3XN and Zhubo Design's natural history museum is set to be built in the Yanzi Lake area of Shenzhen's Pingshan District.

It will be topped with a publically accessible park that will gently rise from ground level to offer a walkway along the roof of the curved building.

The museum will be topped with a park

"3XN, B+H Architects, and Zhubo Design's winning design scheme, entitled Delta, rises seamlessly from the river delta, inviting visitors and residents to journey along its accessible green rooftop," said the studios.

"A public park extends throughout the roof and highlights the Natural History Museum's organic geometries. Like a river stream finding its shape in balance with the earth, every turn frames a new spectacular view over the surrounding park, hills, and lake from dedicated viewing terraces along the roof park."

It will be built alongside a lake

The 42,000-square meter museum will contain a series of galleries dedicated to natural history and the ecology of Shenzhen and its surrounding region. These spaces will be accessed from a large entrance lobby at the centre of the building that the studios describe as cave-like.

"Like water streaming down a river, the undulating form leads guests to a 'cave' inspired passage that is connected to the museum lobby and activated by multiple cafes and public areas, serving as the pulsating heart of the building," said the studios.

Galleries will be dedicated to natural history

The museum is being built as part of an initiative to create a range of ten new cultural facilities in Shenzhen, with an opera house and exhibition hall as well as technology, oceanic and art museums all planned for the city.

When complete, Shenzhen Natural History Museum will be the first large-scale museum dedicated to natural history in southern China.

The museum is the latest in a wave of new cultural institutions being built in China. Recently completed museums in the country include the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Museum, which is housed within cavernous brick vaults, the He Art Museum by Tadao Ando, and a set of ruins that were transformed into a museum by Shenzhen Horizontal Design.

Renders by 3XN.

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YOY's Undigital timepiece for Rado is "an analogue watch with the character of a digital watch"

Rado Design Week kicks off with the launch of a special edition of Rado's True Square watch designed by YOY, which the Japanese design studio introduces in this exclusive video produced by Dezeen.

YOY founders Naoki Ono and Yuki Yamamoto have created a minimal twist on the True Square watch, which merges the function of an analogue watch with the appearance of a digital one.

"We wanted to create an analogue watch with the character of a digital watch," Ono said in the video.

"As everything in the world, including watches, becomes digital, we wanted to explore the curious opposite: transforming a digital thing into an analogue one," he added.

Called Rado True Square Undigital, the watch's minimal face features a set of dials that give a nod to the classic seven-segment displays of digital watch faces.

Here the angular bars of digital watch displays make up the bright white hands of the watch which float in the watch's otherwise black clock face.

Using injection moulding technology, the watch is made from high-tech ceramics, a material that the brand pioneered in the 1990s.

Previously only used in fields such as medicine or aeronautics, the material is light and scratch-resistant.

"This ceramic material has a finish similar to metal but is much lighter and is really comfortable against the skin," Yamamoto explained.

Ono and Yamamoto founded their studio in 2011 after they met on their travels from Tokyo to attend Milan Design Week, and have since specialised in furniture design, lighting and interior design.

Naoki Ono and Yuki Yamamoto, founders of YOY

"We value humour in our design and everyone at Rado immediately understood our intentions," Ono said.

"We were very grateful to have been able to work closely together on the finishing and details to realise a design true to our original concept."

Ono and Yamamoto will be speaking about the watch to Dezeen founder Marcus Fairs and Rado's CEO Adrian Bosshard in a live talk at 12:00pm London time today as part of Rado Design Week.

YOY's Rado True Square Undigital watch is one of four watches by a roster of global designers that will be revealed during Rado Design Week, a week-long collaboration between the Swiss watch brand and Dezeen.

Dezeen will publish exclusive videos revealing special editions of Rado's True Square watch by designers Formafantasma, Tej Chauhan and Thukral & Tagra, followed by a live conversation with each of the designers. Click here to check out the schedule.

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