This hanging wire shelving is designed to showcase each plants individuality and unique purpose!

REN is a flagship plant store committed to revitalizing dying plants and showcasing each plant for its individuality and unique needs.

Whenever we want to bring some life to our rooms, filling them up with mini indoor gardens usually does the trick. However, taking care of plants comes with its own list of challenges–keeping tabs on the amount of sunlight and water required for certain plants to thrive can get overwhelming. Sooner than we know it, our favorite plants are dying and we’re back at square one. In Mita, Tokyo, social advocacy design studio Nosigner opened REN, a flagship ornamental plant store whose aim is to bring life back to dying plants.

Under close leadership from Nobuaki Kawarhara, fourth-generation Tokyo Ikebana, REN is operated by a team of plant caretakers who specialize in the Japanese art of Ikebana, or the art of flower arrangement. Considering the launch of REN, Nosigner suggests that our love for ornamental plants dates back to our primitive memories of living in forests. Once towns and cities became popularized in the 19th-century, our close proximity to forests and plant life to replaced with city infrastructure and paved roads. Since then, we’ve been craving the presence of greenery in our rooms and day-to-day lives.

REN is a flagship store focused on revitalizing our relationship to plants, noting that, “Ornamental plants brought in to create a pseudo-natural atmosphere in indoor spaces are not adapted to the environment and are therefore weak and often die. While we need ornamental plants, we also have a distorted relationship with them as part of our ecosystem.”

In designing REN’s interior space, Nosigner aimed to look at the room as a single vase to accentuate the beauty of each plant. Swapping out the number of plants for quality, Nosigner built a moveable wire shelf that weaves throughout the entire store, providing individual shelves where each plant is showcased for its vitality and unique personality.

Designer: NOSIGNER

Xiaomi’s Mi 10 Ultra promises an absurd 120x hybrid zoom

Early this year, Xiaomi revealed two flagship phones, the Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro. Today, to celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary, Xiaomi is adding to the Mi 10 lineup. It announced the Mi 10 Ultra, which comes with impressive camera specs, 50W wirel...

The Google Pixel 4 is here to replace Huawei with its massive 3-lens Camera setup!

It’s quite unlike Google to add fuel to the product-leak-conspiracy fire, but around this time yesterday, Google uploaded a preview image of the Pixel 4 on their Twitter account (nobody would check Google+ apparently), and a lot of things immediately caught my eye. Here’s what we know so far about the rumored Pixel 4!

Google has come a long way in the hardware department, but nothing captivates users more than A. Google’s pristine stock-Android experience, and its timely updates, and B. That sweet-as-maple-syrup camera. Google has managed to single-handedly dethrone Apple as the king of the smartphone camera with some incredible behind-the-scenes computational photography. In fact, while companies are introducing multiple lenses to their smartphone camera setups to make them better, Google has, for three long years, easily done what its competition struggled to do, with just one single lens and its secret-sauce image-processing algorithm. With the Pixel 4, however, all that changes.

The Pixel 4 is Google’s iPhone 4 moment, with a radically different design that shows that Google takes being the best rather seriously. It ditches the two-tone finish on the phone’s back (a standout feature that set the Pixel apart) for a flat, glossy surface, devoid of even the fingerprint sensor. Upon this remarkably clean surface sits Google’s piece-de-resistance. Its first foray into primary multi-lens shooting.

With Huawei now practically out of the picture, Google can rightfully claim the throne as the best smartphone shooter, with Samsung and Apple playing catch-up. Sitting like a crown on the Pixel 4’s rear are not one, not two, but THREE lenses and a flash, all arranged into a pretty massive camera tile (I can’t honestly call it a bump anymore). There isn’t much word on what the three lenses are, but as a Pixel user myself, I can only imagine that every single Pixel camera feature will get significantly better! Who knows, but the phone may even come with Google’s Project Tango, allowing it to scan/capture 3D imagery. Three primary lenses would probably even help Google perform better AR tracking, giving it a definitive edge over the iPhone and Apple’s ARKit.

On the front (if leaks and rumors are true), the Pixel 4 will feature a bezel-less hole-punch design… a definite upgrade over the massive notch we saw on last year’s Pixel 3. Two lenses on the front give the Pixel 4 great front-facing photography chops, as well as facial recognition, and the smartphone’s bezel-less experience surely makes the Pixel 4 feel like a premium handset.

The Pixel 4 will come with Google’s latest edition of the Android OS (codenamed Q), and reports even say it will debut Google’s Project Soli, a touch-less form of interaction that Google debuted in 2015, that may just revolutionize how we use our phones (and may also render power and volume buttons obsolete in the future!) The Pixel 4 is currently on track for its official launch in October. Let’s see what you got, Google!

Designer: Sarang Sheth

Final Image Credit: Google

Apple Store inside DC’s historic Carnegie Library opens May 11th

Two years after Apple announced plans to turn Washington, DC's Carnegie Library into a retail store, the company will open the doors to its latest flagship on May 11th. This comes after years of planning and months of restoration and renovation.