Breathtaking Architecture designs from the 2021 A’ Design Award that’ll make your jaw drop

Goethe’s words “I call architecture frozen music” couldn’t ring more true for these 8 structural marvels. If architecture truly is frozen music, this article is a mixtape of 2020-21’s greatest hits.

A part of A’ Design Award and Competition‘s winner list, these buildings are awarded for the uniqueness of the project, social impacts, environment friendliness, energy utilization, and other project-specific criteria. Ranging from conceptual designs to residential units, to spas, offices, museums, and retail spaces, the A’ Design Award covers architecture in its entirety, aside from a wide roster of other categories. Not only does winning an A’ Design Award look great on an architect’s resume, but it also brings a lot of repute and focus to the work, uplifting its value!

Architecture remains the most popular category at the A’ Design Awards, receiving entries by the thousands each year. Here are a few favorites that we wish we had enough money to afford!

The A’ Design Award is currently accepting entries for the 2022 edition of the award program, so go ahead and give your work and career the push it deserves!

If you’re an architect or spatial designer looking to participate in the A’ Design Awards this year, click here to register. Hurry! The regular deadline ends on September 30th, 2021.


Living The Noom by Sanzpont Arquitectura

Designed by Mexico-based Sanzpont Arquitectura, ‘Living In The Noom’ puts you in the lap of nature and luxury. Its sanctuary-esque design focuses on three broad pillars – Wellness, Sustainability, and Flexibility. The community features multiple 4-storeyed houses with a uniquely alluring triangular shape, characterized by vertical bamboo channels and a vertical forest growing on the outer facade of the building. Along with giving Noom’s residents a stellar home to live in, the project even comes with amenities like greenery (70% of the project’s area is covered in nature – the buildings occupy just 30% of the overall space), as well as rejuvenation centers, meditation areas, parks, pools, workshop-centers for art, and even the organic garden for healthy eating. Finally, the structure culminates in a terrace on the fifth floor that has solar panels for harvesting energy, and an urban garden where the residents can grow their own food.

Flowers of Clouds Observation Tower by Vu Van Hai

Characterized by its rolling hills coated with pine trees, marigolds, and mimosa flowers, Da Lat is considered one of Vietnam’s most romantic cities. The Tower Flower, an observation tower molded into the shape of a flower in the early stages of blooming, sings an ode to those rolling hills of Da Lat with terrace gardens and biophilic design principles. Designed to be a coffee boutique bar as part of a larger resort complex, The Tower Flower’s spherical frame features facades that mimic flowers blooming with rich orange corten steel modules that form the structure’s large petals. Twisting throughout the building’s interior, a winding ramp emulates the flow and curve of a river to allow the surrounding landscape and interior garden to gradually appear to each guest and visitor. Inside the coffee boutique bar, visitors and residents can enjoy views of the surrounding landscape as well as the structure’s interior garden that pays tribute to the Lotus flower, the symbol for pure beauty in Buddhism.

Time Holiday Mobile Home by Chester Goh

Designed so that you can have a cabin in the woods, a house on the lake, or a property on the beach whenever you want, the Time Holiday is a mobile home that’s focused on what designer Chester Goh calls ‘futuristic sustainability… or basically architecture that’s nomadic, so you don’t need to build multiple homes. Saving on total costs and unnecessary construction waste, these modular pods/villas come prefabricated and do not require any foundation. They’re built to be stable, spacious, and structurally sound, and can easily be lifted up and shifted anywhere on the planet without any limitations to terrains and topography. “Wanting to wake up to the morning of serene blue sea, lush green grassland, or a majestic golden dessert in a modular pod that is closely connected to nature has been the driving inspiration to this project”, says designer Chester Goh.

Shenzhen Transsion Holdings Office by Aedas


The terms ‘natural’ and ‘boxy’ don’t often go together, except with buildings like the Shenzhen Transsion Holdings office, where they’re made to combine together in a nature-meets-architecture solution. The building’s rather template-ish skyscraper design is beautifully punctuated by greenery that creates a feeling of ‘openness’ within the confines of the architecture. These intermediate ‘open spaces’ create variety and interactions between the staff and offices, to demonstrate the corporate spirit of “co-operation and co-sharing” through symbolic architecture… I’d call it a rather literal interpretation of being in a ‘concrete jungle’!

Bayfront Pavilion by Thomas Schroepfer – AAL


The inspiration for the Bayfront Pavilion was the visually beautiful experience of walking under the foliage of lush trees in the tropics. This idea was translated into a design with a clear mathematical logic that was determined by extensive environmental simulations and structural optimizations, resulting in an artificial canopy that still felt natural as you walked underneath it. Light filtered through the canopy’s perforated design – a phenomenon the Japanese call Komorebi – and as the canopy cut out a major chunk of sunlight, the area underneath was naturally cooled by the shade. Located in Gardens by the Bay Singapore, the Bayfront Pavilion (also known as The Future of Us Pavilion) follows the tradition of architectural structures that evoke a dialogue with nature by blending an intricate form made of a perforated skin fluidly with the adjacent environments. For visitors, the building offers a climatically comfortable outdoor environment and a visual experience akin to walking under the foliage of lush tropical trees.

The Rossmore Residential Multi-Unit by Artur Nesterenko and Amr Samaha


A beautiful interpretation of art-deco architecture, the Rossmore residential building turns concrete into fabric with how it curves, almost like the curtains seen in theaters. The concrete pillars curve and pleat as they travel downwards, mimicking fabric curtains seen in grand halls built during the art-deco era. “The Rossmore is set to utilize high-performance concrete cladding panels with sculptural elements for the facades while being one of the first massive timber mid-high-rise apartment buildings in Los Angeles”, say the designers.

Nudibranch Hotel and Resort by SpActrum


Inspired by shellfish, the Nudibranch hotel comes with an instantly recognizable shell-like facade, and has ‘tentacles’ that stretch out in different directions, creating a piece of architecture that looks absolutely mesmerizing from any angle. Named after the nudibranch, a type of mollusk, the hotel stands as a wonderful example of nature-inspired design. The ‘shell’ of the hotel forms its main building, while the rest of its body surrounds the shell, forming lawns and pathways above the sandy coast of the beach. The tentacles (which aren’t visible in the above image) are actually covered pathways that connect the ground to restaurants and bars, and the spa and swimming pool to the main hotel itself.

Solar Veloroute Photovoltaic Pathway by Peter Kuczia


Bike roads, also known as Veloroutes are steadily becoming city staples, even mainstays for commuters on foot or bike. With the demand for Veloroutes increasing, Kuczia created a Solar Veloroute that comprises a photovoltaic tunnel structure that serves as a solar canopy for cyclists and pedestrians as well as a public facility where commuters can enjoy lit pathways at night and charging stations for bicycles or smartphones. Solar Veloroute presents as a partly-enclosed, rounded archway constructed from overlaid non-reflective glass-glass solar panels, which are attached to round tube steel purlins. While the Solar Veloroute collects solar energy during the day for on-site charging stations and lighting, the surplus energy collected can be distributed and used for additional services. On the structure’s sustainably sourced power, Kuczia says, “Just one kilometer of [Solar Veloroute] could provide around 2,000 MWh of electricity and could power 750 households or provide electricity for more than 1,000 electric cars driving 11,000 km per year.”

If you’re an architect or spatial designer looking to participate in the A’ Design Awards this year, click here to register. Hurry! The regular deadline ends on September 30th, 2021.

Experimental Industrial Designer Michael Young describes his diverse work as “Industrial Art”

It’s really difficult to pinpoint Michael Young’s style. A lot of designers develop a very recognizable quality that allows you to box their work into a certain category, but that’s far from true in the case of Hong Kong-based Industrial Designer Michael Young. Young’s work is best described as experimental, as he dips into a world of creativity shaped by his life in Britain, Iceland, Taiwan, Brussels, and finally Hong Kong. Young’s studio specializes in creating modern design through exploring the endless possibilities Asia’s technological ingenuity provides, while constantly pushing to experiment with new materials and see how they inform the design of different products within different categories.

Yanko Design had a chance to reach out to Michael and take a closer look at some of his work from the years gone by. Michael graduated from Kingston University in 1992 and set up his design studio the following year. With nearly 3 decades in the industry, he’s made a name for himself as one of the leading international figures in his field, and the Michael Young Studio aims at providing exclusive, quality design services across an eclectic range of markets – from interiors to technology. His minimalist, elegant, and sophisticated style is a trademark in his body of work, which has always attracted the attention of the industry and has been acquired by public institutions such as the Pompidou Center and the Louvre Museum. “It is Design as Industrial Art that interests me, not just as a limited edition, but on a scale of mass production”, Michael says about his approach to creativity and design.

Click Here to visit Michael Young’s website and view his work


Michael Young x Coalesse – LessThanFive Carbon Fiber Chair

A winner of the iF Gold Award, the LessThanFive chair gets its name from the fact that it weighs less than 5 pounds. Made entirely from carbon-fiber, the chair was a collaborative project between Michael Young and Coalesse, a Steelcase brand. The chair explores carbon fiber as a material for furniture by pushing the boundaries of what the material can do. The chair’s form is so elegantly slim that it can only be made out of carbon fiber (any other material would cause it to buckle), and even though it weighs less than 5 lbs, it can hold a stunning 300lbs of weight!

Michael Young x O.D.M. – Hacker Watch

The Hacker Watch encapsulates Young’s east-meets-west approach rather perfectly. “ODM was a local brand and at the time had not worked with an international designer at this level. Paul So, the CEO, is a great thinker and had predicted world timepiece recession, due to smartphones, long before they became household items”, says Young. The watch was designed as a result of this approach, and combined an iconic design along with an affordable price, making the watch instantly desirable, even in an age where people just read the time on their smartphone. The watch was designed and manufactured in 2011, when the smartphone movement had just picked up pace.

Michael Young – MY Collection

The MY Collection first premiered at Gallery ALL in LA and Beijing, and comprised a chair, a side table, a writing desk, a round coffee table, a console, and a lounge chair. The unusually designed pieces featured polished stainless steel honeycomb frames, inlaid with white enamel surfaces. Each piece consisted of a cluster of hollow metal extrusions capped at each end and covered with enamel, making the furniture look less like conventional home decor and more like eye-catching jewelry. “A while back, I had worked with cloisonné in Northern China and began to look at how patterns and colors came together and how metal could be shaped to create divisions of form”, Michael mentions. “Some of my earlier attempts were inspired by oil on water and the natural patterns generated by this when taken in a snapshot. For Gallery ALL, we looked at these in a new way by self-generating forms created by the computer, and then we extracted the patterns in two-dimensional slices.”

Michael Young x Moke International – Moke Car

Initially produced to share some of the Mini’s mechanical parts, but with a more rugged body shell to give it a life intended for the beach, the Moke holds its own as a historic and cult car with a rich 50-year history that was sadly put out of production in 1993. However, when Young got an email asking if he would work on redesigning a Moke reissue, he called it a “call of duty as a Moke Enthusiast”. It was essential to strike an equal balance for the old enthusiast and the new generation of Moke drivers, like himself. After redesigning and reengineering more than 160 new parts the MOKE was brought back, better than ever. “It has the same spirit, the same style and is just as suave as the original Moke”, says Young.

Michael Young x CIGA Design – Templates Watch

The Template watch hopes to merge the movement and face into one singular piece. It isn’t as much a skeletal watch as it is a work of art that also displays the watch’s fine engineering. Yet another winner of the iF Gold Award, the Template Watch flips the tradition of having a plain watch-face and integrating a transparent exhibition back to showcase the watch’s movement. Instead, the ornately designed watch-face itself lets you peer through and see certain aspects of the watch’s movement. It balances its ‘industrial aesthetic’ with curved edges on the watch-face, that give it a softness to the appearance.

Michael Young – Oxygen Chair

Perhaps one of the most unusual projects in Michael’s body of work, the Oxygen Chair has a strangely relic-esque quality to it… along with an incredibly interesting manufacturing method. The chairs are molded out of aluminum that’s injected into steel casts along with high-temperature gas at immensely high pressures (hence the name Oxygen Chair). The process is somewhat similar to how rocks are formed, and the resulting chair looks less like metal and more like an excavated block of stone with imperfect, porous surfaces that are almost in line with igneous rocks. Finally, to give the furniture its color, it’s coated in a way similar to ceramic glazing, but with absolutely rustic and unusual results. The final chair challenges the archetypes of furniture and craftsmanship, offering a radically experimental manufacturing method that results in chairs fit to be in a museum!

Michael Young x Lasvit – Homune Table

Once again challenging the archetypes of furniture, the Homune Table combines jewelry and furniture design into one absolutely eye-catching final product. The Homune Table’s base comes hand-blown from amber-glass, giving it an almost gem-like appeal that’s accentuated by the geometric design of the base. The honeycomb structure isn’t just an aesthetic detail, but rather gives the table strength too, while the complete glass design really sets it apart as bordering on glass solitaire.

Michael Young x Christopher Farr – Voronic & Tessellation Rugs

Designed to look less like a fabric rug and more like stained-glass art, the Voronic & Tesselation Rugs is a result of a long-time partnership between Young and rug-company Christopher Farr. The use of voronoi patterns gives the rug an aesthetic that’s a massive deviation from the oriental and occidental rug styles, or even contemporary rugs, that are either rectangular or circular in shape. ‘Voronic’, a hand-knotted rug, and ‘Tessellation’, a hand-tufted version are both designs configured through Young experimenting with a voronoi pattern. This motif is found in nature – where it is perhaps most instantly recognizable as the pattern of a giraffe’s skin, or even in the cellular patterns found on leaves. With various points of shape and color, this rug is infinitely customizable, allowing it to expand as a series, or even be tailor-made to certain spaces/rooms/interior styles.


Young’s work spans nearly three decades, multiple continents, and features clients/brands like Steelcase, Titan, Lacoste, Coca Cola, Absolut, Hair, CIGA Design, Native Union, and many more. He’s been a recipient of multiple awards, including the iF Design Award, Red Dot Design Award, Tokyo Good Design Award, German Design Award, and the Eurobike Awards, among others. Young’s work has even found itself a home in institutions like the Louvre, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Design Museum. Click here to visit Michael Young’s website and see his other works.

Here are the hottest winning-designs from the A’ Design Award 2021

While we slowly put this pandemic in our rear-view mirror, here’s something to look forward to – the A’ Design Award and Competition 2021 just announced their annual winners. Spanning literally a hundred categories, the A’ Design Awards look at creating a holistic list of the best designs internationally, across all disciplines. While the Coronavirus has definitely put a damper on awards who are looking to conduct exhibitions and gala nights for their winners, that hasn’t stopped the A’ Design Award from making sure their winners get their share of the international limelight!

The A’ Design Award and Competition is much more than just your average awards program. It actively seeks good design, markets it, brings value to the project as well as the designer in the form of a wide range of value-added services like a dedicated PR Campaign, an online exhibition, and even a platform to sell your design on… and these perks aren’t just limited to the design, they extend to the designers and creators too. Your participation entitles you to a proof-of-creation document, inclusion in A’ Design’s Business Network, and the Design Fee Calculator service that lets you accurately price your design services for future clients, allowing you to set up your design practice.

Judged by a grand jury of 211 elite designers and educators, here are a select few of A’ Design Award and Competition 2021’s winners. We’ve hand-picked some of our favorites from this year’s list of winners spanning categories such as Product Design, Social Design, Tech, Furniture, Medical, and Transportation Design. Scroll down below to have a look at what’s making the waves this year in the design circuit! And don’t forget to register below to participate in the competition for 2021-22 to make sure your work as well as you get the recognition you deserve!

Grab an Early-bird Registration for A’ Design Awards 2021 by clicking here!


YD Handpicks: Winning Designs from A’ Design Awards 2018-19

CanguRo Mobility Robot by Shunji Yamanaka – fuRo

The CanguRo Mobility Robot is a classic example of building the future by looking at the past. For centuries (if not millennia), humans have rode on horses as transport. The horse, unlike a car or motorcycle, forms a relationship with the rider over time, following, responding to commands, and remaining subservient to its owner. The CanguRo Mobility Robot provides a similar experience with a three-wheeled robot that the user can ride, summon via their smartphone, and even walk ahead of as the robot follows them along. The three-wheeled mobility bot is autonomous, which gives the rider a certain degree of freedom. It can be summoned from the parking lot by simply tapping a button, and can even follow you around as you walk. However, when you want to ride it, straddle yourself in its seat and the three wheels spread apart, providing you with a comfortable, controlled, and stable driving experience!

Standly Bao Folding Chair by Ming Hsiu Lee and Hu Jui Chung

We all need to take a break from being in one single posture all day long, whether that’s sitting in a home-office chair, or lazing with a laptop in bed. To make things easier and healthier for those spending all day on their feet, Designer Ming Shiu Lee created Standly Bao – an assistive device for workers that keeps them in a healthy standing posture and mental state while still having mobility. The Standly Bao is a slightly tilted structure designed to support three different pressure points – the hip, knees, and feet. The aim is to provide support to these points and reduce the pressure on lower limbs thus keeping workers from becoming habituated to a wrong standing posture which can result in long-term health problems. When using Standly Bao, the user rests in a position between standing and sitting. The stand can be folded up and is able to fit in narrow spaces without obstructing anything. The stand helps to correct your posture and alleviate headache, shoulder pain, neck stiffness, lower back pain, and more.

Eli Functional Pour-over Coffee Maker by Chenchen Fan

Although there are a whole bunch of travel coffee makers out there in the world, none of them are like the Eli. The capsule-shaped coffee maker turns the brewing, steeping, and pouring experience into one singular movement, making the coffee-making experience much more convenient. It all starts with the Eli’s design, which consists of the brewing chamber and two cups, all connected to a single lever that allows you to lift to brew, tilt to pour, and push down to close the brewer. Lift the lever up in its vertical position and you have your conventional pour-over style coffee maker. Once the coffee’s ready, tilt the lever diagonally and tip the brewing chamber over and coffee pours right into the cup directly below it. By controlling the position of the lever, you control which cup you’re pouring coffee into… and when you’re done, just push the lever right down and the Eli goes from being a vertical brewer to a flat little appliance you can stash anywhere in your kitchen.

Poetry – Wireless Charger + Lamp by Yong Zhang and Lei Wang

Poetry isn’t your average wireless charging appliance. It’s an expressive little gadget that lights up your space while charging up your phone. Styled to look like an abstract bonsai tree for your table, Poetry provides a space to dock your phone while also providing a wash of ambient light to your workspace. What’s more is that the Poetry even comes with its own detachable power-bank that you can remove and use independently anywhere you go. When you’re back at your desk, just pop the power-bank back in its place and it begins recharging too!

Pad Chair by Shaohan Yang

The Pad Chair transforms from a benign wooden mat into a neat chair with a backrest! Made from multiple wooden strips joined together in a rather unique way, the Pad Chair possesses the ability to transform from a flat, 2D shape into a neat, comfortable 3D chair. I’m sure there’s a locking system in place that allows the chair to lock in either closed or open positions, but for now, the Pad Chair provides a radical alternative to those ugly metal foldable chairs (the kind you’d see on wrestling shows). What the Pad Chair offers as an alternative looks incredibly classy, in both its closed as well as open versions!

Medapti Oral Medicine Syringe Adapter by Dorota Dyk

Perhaps one of the most clever ways to get a baby to take their medicine, the Medapti lulls the baby into a sense of comfort and calm, while allowing parents to cleverly feed their children food or medicine. The Medapti is designed to be a soother that allows you to attach a feeding syringe on the other end. Just pop the Medapti in the child’s mouth and use the syringe to inject food and medicine right in. Sure, it may seem like a cheap little trick to your toddler, but it’s an equally effective solution for parents!

Elytra Space Saver Coffee Table by Radhika Dhumal

In an unusually beautiful case of nature-inspired design, the Elytra table by Radhika Dhumal expands in size by ‘spreading its wings’! The table comes inspired by beetles and the way their wings nest perfectly around their body. The table itself comes with perfectly natural bug-like proportions that fit in well as garden decor, and uses two ‘wings’ to expand in surface, much like the beetle. Elytra’s design is dominated by rounded forms that give it a friendly, pet-like demeanor and its four legs are positioned in a way that gives the Elytra its unique, animal-like stance. The table’s surfaces are split into four broad parts, including a wooden ‘head’ and ‘body’ as well as two glass-inlay wings that can be opened out to expand the table’s surface to store an extra few cups of tea, a planter or two, and perhaps a notebook to doodle your ideas on!

Ori Accent Chair by Manish Maheshwari

It’s unfair to brand the Ori as a chair when it clearly is a throne! Designed to give the person sitting on it a grand halo, the Ori chair makes a clever use of folded metal to create its signature design. Inspired by (and even named after) origami, the chair uses sheet metal with perforated fold-lines in its design. The perforations allow the metal to easily bend along a desired path, giving the chair its signature pleated design. However, in the interest of comfort, the seating area along with the backrest of the chair come with triangular wooden pieces put into the metal’s folds, creating a flat surface to sit on and lean against. Wonderful, isn’t it??

The Board Skateboard by Chia-Wei Chen

The Board is an award-winning collapsible skateboard that is inspired by the same mechanical linkage system seen in collapsing gates, in scissors, and in those expandable grabber toys you’re probably familiar with. It’s hard to think of how skateboards and gates have any design-process overlap, but The Board makes it clear that a detail found in one product can easily and effectively be ported onto another product with stunning results. The Board uses this collapsible linkage system to make itself more portable. Machined metal components are arranged, sandwiched, and connected to each other with multiple pivot points to make The Board’s body. These linkages allow The Board to expand and collapse just by pulling or pushing it, taking it from a long, skateboard shape to a much more compact and carryable circular shape that easily fits right into backpacks. The metal construction gives The Board its signature strength (so the pieces don’t bend or flex when you stand on the skateboard), while also imparting a unique appearance to it, whether open or closed!

Origami Fashion Mask by Yuriko Wada

There’s something very charming about the Origami Fashion Mask that clearly sets it apart from the clinical aesthetic of your signature blue surgical face mask. Its unique pleated design allows it to naturally curve around your face, going from side to side without leaving any visible air gaps. The mask comes made from a non-woven breathable fabric filter-cloth, and the folded edges are painted with a thin gold line, giving the mask a decorative appeal. Designed to be worn at functions and celebrations, the Origami Fashion Mask folds flat into a bookmark-shaped sleeve and can be mailed along with invitation cards. That way, all your guests get the invitation and are also aware of the mask-wearing protocol at the event. Plus, it almost becomes a part of a grand costume/trend to see all the guests wearing the same style of mask!

Grab an Early-bird Registration for A’ Design Awards 2021 by clicking here!

The top 10 cabin designs of March are here to provide the perfect architectural escapism!

I love each and every kind of vacation, I do not have any prejudices against any, whether it’s by the beach, on a mountaintop, on a cruise in the middle of the ocean – every type of holiday has my heart. However, I do harbor a soft spot for cabin getaways! I would prefer nothing better than lounging about in a peaceful little cabin tucked away in the middle of the woods. Away from the world, society, and the Internet! It’s a beautiful chance to reconnect with nature, breathe in some fresh oxygen, and simply rejuvenate yourself with a clear mind and even clearer surroundings. I don’t know when I’ll be able to embark on a cabin vacation next, but in anticipation of one, here’s a list of the best cabin designs Yanko Design has seen this March, that are sure to give you the travel bug! From a cabin-style eco-hotel to a little pyramid-shaped cabin in the Finnish forest, we’ve got an assortment of cabin designs to match your every mood!

Cube Two is a 263-square-foot home that is designed for the future and smart living. This modern compact home is a prefabricated structure that already comes fitted with the latest home appliances that can all be controlled by an AI assistant named Canny. The exterior has smooth curved corners that give it a friendly vibe and the interior offers enough space for a family of four to live comfortably with two bedrooms and an open living area. To make it feel roomier, there is a skylight that runs across the ceiling and floods the space with natural light, and also provides a wonderful frame of the night sky.

With two rounded roofs, The Willow’s bulbous frame stands out against the sprawling green lawn where it’s situated. From the outside, The Willow, by Sky Meadow Glamping appears like something straight from a science fiction cartoon, immediately drawing in its guests with its whimsical shape. Placed right in front of the tiny cabin’s wooden deck, two circular windows punctuate The Willow’s front-facing facade and provide unobstructed views of Pembroke’s countryside. Following the larger window inside the tiny cabin, guests are greeted with an open-floor studio layout, featuring a full living area with a television and sofa, a full-sized kitchen and dining area, along with a private bedroom, additional sleeping areas, and bathroom.

The architectural CMF for the Weekend House Nové Hamry by NEW HOME architects has been inspired by the spruce trees that surround it, so there are a lot of shades of gray and dark green. Weekend House Nové Hamry features connection points for solar panels and vertical wind turbines to make it energy self-sufficient. The roof and most of the exterior are covered in a durable, anthracite-colored aluminum cladding. This resembles oiled black wood and adds to the minimal, modern, elegant aesthetic of the cabin. The area gets a lot of heavy snow so to manage the load, the angular design also features a steeply sloped roof. The structure is constructed from cross-laminated timber panels.

Algorithms helped design the shape of this Japanese holiday retreat! Designed for idyllic Hokkaido in Japan, the YEZO is a retreat that uses its dramatic landscape and an experimental design approach to create a sanctuary in nature. The YEZO’s overall design is a fusion of both aesthetics and algorithms, optimized for fabrication from one single mold to minimize ecological impact and reduce manufacturing cost and delivery time. It features a unique curved roof that not only creates a spacious interior but even provides a channel for the central chimney while creating a small terrace/skylight in the process. The wooden roof shell structure, clad with regional black slate, consists of sustainable GluLam (glue-laminated) timber beams suspended from a central concrete chimney. “YEZO’s curved GluLam beams are carefully shaped to operate in pure tension throughout, resulting in weight and material reductions of 90% compared to straight beams”, say Kristof and Julien, the designers behind the award-winning retreat. The YEZO Retreat is a winner of the Golden Pin Design Award for the year 2020.

Imagine a cabin that envelops you in the landscape through its design – that is exactly the feeling Jorge Luis Veliz Quintana envisioned with his cabin design located on the edge of mountains in Cuba! The unique cocoon shape structures are perched on giant boulders and each cabin spans over an area of 150sqm. The curved wooden lattices sit on concrete platforms which match the grey tones of the cliff which makes it seem like the cabin is born out of the rocks itself and is levitating – I absolutely love it when designers pay attention to smaller details in their CMF which makes their concept truly one with the surroundings and it is visually soothing.

ZeroCabin wants to change the habits of its occupants by providing the tools to live sustainably. “It is not about ‘what happens if the water-scarce,’ the questions these days should be ‘if the waters scarce, are my habits according to the water available in the place where I live? If the solar energy is not enough, are my consumption habits according to the energy available?” adds the team when talking about the thought process behind the design. All ZeroCabins regardless of the modality you buy (turnkey or DIY) have a structural base that allows optimal capture of their only two inputs, just like trees: sun and rainwater. The cabin maximizes functionality oversize but includes a wide range of modifications you can do based on the land you want to put it on and as long as it is aligned with their environmental guidelines.

Studio Puisto, a sustainable interior design studio based in Finland, recently debuted the first prototype of cabins soon to be part of a larger hospitality project called Kivijärvi Resort. The resort’s first completed cabin is called Niliaitta, which refers to the traditional storage structure built at the end of a high pillar, used by the Sámi people to store food and equipment, keeping it safe from the grasp of hungry or curious wildlife. In order to immerse guests of Kivijärvi Resort in the elements of nature as safely, but also as close as possible, Studio Puisto installed a floor-to-ceiling window that stands some distance from the cabin’s deep gable roof. From Niliaitta’s front-facing window, guests enjoy the most dominant landscapes as the cabin’s location was purposefully selected to offer the most unobstructed views of Finland’s forest and nearby body of water.

FLEXSE is a prefabricated micro-dwelling solution aka tiny house designed to adapt to ALL seasons, so even if winter wonderland is not your thing, this cabin will certainly be. The cozy modern structure is constructed entirely from 100% recyclable materials and can be assembled in parts on-site or positioned on foundations, allowing it to be set up in remote areas, the countryside, or even on water. Since the construction industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than aviation (12% vs 2% – can you believe it?), it is wonderful to see an all-season eco-friendly house. The first prototype was a small BBQ shack intended for cooking and then the team made sure it could be tailored for different purposes too – like a sauna, a guest house, a home office, and more. This eventually led to FLEXE being a complete tiny house. One of its most distinct details is the circular window which almost makes the house look like it has the most elegant monocle with a periscope-like view.

OFIS Arhitekti worked with local structural engineers CBD to develop the Kanin Winter Cabin, which is designed to resist extreme weather conditions on its exposed site on Mount Kanin. This tiny 9.7-square-meter cabin has a narrow floor plan containing three shelf-like floors and has dimensions of just 2.4 by 4.9 meters. It is made from a combination of cross-laminated timber, glass, and aluminum panels.

Nestled just 20 minutes from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), Casa Etérea provides breathtaking views of the volcanic and starry landscape. “The vision was to create a theatre to nature, so sustainability was crucial in achieving a truly complete integration with the environment,” explains Ashoka. Not only does the glass and mirror exterior reflect the hillsides and mesquite trees, but a special patterned, ultraviolet coating allows birds to see it as a structure that eliminates the risk of impact. The off-the-grid cabin can host two people comfortably within the 75-square-meter space. It is 100% powered by solar panels and includes all amenities for a comfortable stay like a king-sized bed, a luxurious living space, a kitchen, and laundry facilities.

Dodge Demon and more iconic cars get reinvented with these powerful and transformative makeovers!

Yanko Design’s favorite iconic cars and their equally mesmerizing conceptual renders are here to give you drool-worthy creations! Automotive lovers, trust me, this is one post you do not want to miss!

Dodge Demon is the result of the most passionate motorheads at Dodge, giving it the 840bhp (at 770lb of torque) muscle power that makes even the 707bhp Dodge Hellcat look ordinary. The four-wheeler is packed with power, has an intimidating look to go with it, and yes, Dodge fans absolutely love it. If the Demon wasn’t smokin’ hot enough, automotive concept artist Al Yasid gives it a significant facelift with his tuner kit that literally lends the muscle car a god-like stance! He reimagines the car in white silver body and yellow hue for the front bumper – much like the 68 Porsche 908. The choice of yellow comes from the designer’s current bent towards this color from the palette that he likes the most. With tweaking to the front align with over fenders – who would not fall in love with this muscle car! 

The star of the Back to the Future series is going to shine again, without a doubt. To fuel our imagination and prep us all for the 2021 DeLorean DMC-12, designer Ángel Guerra has awe-inspired automotive design with his version of the DeLorean 2021. He summed up the motivation for this concept in his words – “This is a thank you to an icon and a movie that marked my childhood. This is, too, a new DeLorean for my son’s generation.” As his tribute to the iconic design, Ángel has mustered up this super dope DeLorean for the 40th anniversary of the brand that captured the imagination of an entire generation. The gull-winged car has a lot of character – making it look nothing shy of a supercar of the current generation. Nothing is overdone and every little edge or curve seems well-thought-out. Perhaps, it comes from his culmination of childhood dreams and the subconscious desire to own a DeLorean one day. In fact, his automotive design journey was triggered by the dream-like cars of the 80s and the designs of the following decades.





Maserati and the racing DNA of the luxury carmaker go all the way back to the 1950s in the Grand Prix era. 2020 saw the Italian automaker introduce the halo supercar MC20 and to spice things up designer Salvatoreandrea Piccirillo has come with an electric Gran Turismo supercar concept, he likes to call Maserati Neptune. The designer penned this concept render in collaboration with FCA Group as a part of his training course at IED Transportation Design. The concept borrows the driving position from the 250F Formula One racer and the negative space down the bottom middle is something that’s unique. Maserati Neptune is powered by the Formula E racecar platform with the battery positioned behind the front wheels. The Gran Turismo car has a splitter located at the front and a big diffuser on the rear, giving it a very speed demon-like character. Salvatoreandrea has designed the concept keeping the driving pleasure, sportiness, and comfort in mind – and that’s evident from what we see here.

The Lancia Cargo Stratos, as the concept is called, builds on the Stratos Zero’s wedge design, albeit with a lowered nose to help increase downforce. The concept sports a more streamlined design, embracing curves as well as straight, edgy lines to create something that looks like a wind-tunnel test brought to life. The car’s sides come with continuous metal paneling, hinting at the obvious lack of traditional doors. To enter and exit the vehicle, the windshield opens outwards, revealing the fighter-jet-style 1+1 seater cockpit beneath… just like in the original Stratos Zero. Two headlights sit flush on the car’s surface, right ahead of the fenders, and come fitted with LEDs. The car’s rear comes with linear taillights too, giving off a very cyberpunk vibe.

While it’s not an iconic car design yet, rest assured, the first car made by Apple is sure to gather a cult following by the Apple hardcore fanbase. Adopting Apple’s sharp design aesthetics, the car by Ali Cam looks like a mouse shaped like a car at first glance, but then you realize it’s actually a minimal car concept. Loaded with advanced driving systems Ali envisions the blueprint far in the distant future – the year 2076 to be precise. The choice of year apparently is the 100the anniversary of Apple ever since it was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. On the inside, the Apple Car is more like a luxury lounge with infotainment displays all around (even on the doors), gesture controlled-entertainment systems, and the holographic display traverses the riders into a completely different reality.

For the Viper Basilisk concept, Guillaume took inspiration from the 2nd generation Viper GTS from 1996 and the 3rd generation Viper. Apparently, the design is indicative of the half reptile and half rooster character that’s pretty apparent in the whole thought process behind the concept car. 2nd generation lends the sensual feeling while the 3rd generation has that definitive precision element in the design execution. So, in its design DNA, this Viper Basilisk concept is a ‘Sensual Precision’ of unique design fusion that compares to none. The designer defines it as a precise theme encapsulating the car while the sensual reflections on the bodyside give it that contrasting appeal.

The new breed of supercars might not be that pointy in their looks but still, they have that angular character – the likes of Lamborghini Veneno. Merging the past with the current future of automotive design, artist Ash Thorp and automotive CGI artist colorsponge have joined forces to create a unique concept EV that balances out the best of both worlds. They call it Evinetta, and it’s inspired by the 1970’s Ferrari Berlinetta concept car designed by Pininfarina. The stunning race car is envisioned to be driven by the Tesla Model S powertrain and an active ride suspension. Other bits of the car are adapted from the Porsche RSR – the interior in particular.

In 1970, things were looking up for the company, as design legend Marcello Gandini (head designer at Bertone) unveiled Lancia’s most iconic car… the hyper-sleek Lancia Stratos Zero, an automobile that is considered futuristic even by today’s standards. The Stratos Zero, as iconic and ground-breaking as it was (and the fact that it appeared in Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker video), didn’t give Lancia the thrust it needed to take off. It soon slipped back into its lull, only for Fiat to later announce that Lancia would stop selling cars outside Italy post-2014. Designed by automotive designer and enthusiast, Guilherme Araujo, the Lancia L Concept pays homage to the Stratos Zero on its Golden Jubilee Anniversary. The Lancia L boasts of a similar sleek style, with a wedge-shaped hood. However, it sports air-intakes under the wedge design, allowing the car to both be aesthetically accurate as well as aerodynamic.

Meet the Audi GT concept from UK-based Jordan Gendler… designed to be the modern, Gen-Z soul-child of the TT Quattro and the Rosemeyer concept, the conceptual Audi GT revives a classic, with a makeover fit for the modern age. The Audi GT comes with the same, curve-embracing design that we saw in the TT Quattro, albeit with more sharp, discerning, slim headlamps and taillights, almost echoing the spirit of the year 2020 as opposed to the unabashedly wide-eyed optimism one saw in the 2000s. The silhouette of the GT showcases a great deal of similarity in some regard, embracing similar 3D surfacing to give it a rounded appeal. It even embraces the straight line on the sides stretching from fender to fender, seen on the TT Quattro, reminding us of its heritage.

Boredom and dissatisfaction are two of the biggest drivers for innovation and creativity. Maybe you don’t like something, maybe you have free time on your hands, so you sit and fix stuff and make them better in your own vision. That’s sort of why we’re looking at this absolutely vicious Pagani-on-steroids Batmobile that Encho Enchev designed because he felt the current Batmobile wasn’t intense enough. Designed with edgy body-work, piercing looks, and the classic black design with yellow accents, the Batmobile GT 2020 feels like it could strike fear into the hearts of the toughest criminals (or at least get them to consider an honest living even for a split second). If the edgy, Batarang-on-wheels bodywork doesn’t do it, the pop-out machine guns near the rear wheels should spook even armed bandits… and when justice is restored, the Dark Knight can flee the scene at breakneck speeds, thanks to those three pretty illegal looking afterburners on the rear.

The top 10 cabin designs of February are here to provide the perfect architectural escapism!

Cabin designs are my favorite – there is something undeniably beautiful yet modern in these tiny homes that occupy a tiny part of my heart every time. Be it a traditional A-Frame cabin or a modern AI-enabled cabin design, each unique design is an architectural marvel. I would prefer nothing better than lounging about in a peaceful little cabin tucked away in the middle of the woods. Away from the world, society, and the Internet! It’s a beautiful chance to reconnect with nature, breathe in some fresh oxygen, and simply rejuvenate yourself with a clear mind and even clearer surroundings. I don’t know when I’ll be able to embark on a cabin vacation next, but in anticipation of one, here’s a list of the best cabin designs Yanko Design has seen this February, that are sure to give you the travel bug!

Cube Two is a 263-square-foot home that is designed for the future and smart living. This modern compact home is a prefabricated structure that already comes fitted with the latest home appliances that can all be controlled by an AI assistant named Canny. The exterior has smooth curved corners that give it a friendly vibe and the interior offers enough space for a family of four to live comfortably with two bedrooms and an open living area. To make it feel roomier, there is a skylight that runs across the ceiling and floods the space with natural light, and also provides a wonderful frame of the night sky.

Putting an absolutely new kind of spin on “Home Delivery”, Brette Haus’ prefabricated cabins are literally shipped to your location on the back of a trailer. In a matter of 3 hours, the home is placed on the site, unfolded, and secured in place, turning it from one weird wooden carton into a liveable cabin with anywhere between 22 to 47 sq.ft. of space (depending on the cabin’s variant).

Blackbird is a getaway cabin by STIPFOLD that exists as “a place to be by oneself.” The getaway cabin, an angular structure of black mass combined with tinted glass and a jagged, haphazard display of metal beams, resembles a spaceship that can land in any environment. As conceptualized, Blackbird has landed in a Georgian forest clearing, amidst dense fog and textured pine trees, where it appears right at home. From the outside, below a white, cloudy sky, Blackbird’s asymmetrical frame has a tough exterior constructed from metal to provide a sense of security. Meant to dissolve the barrier between nature and the interior, the tinted glass windows evoke a feeling of privacy, like a lookout that allows its residents to remain hidden while scanning their surroundings.

Studio Puisto, a sustainable interior design studio based in Finland, recently debuted the first prototype of cabins soon to be part of a larger hospitality project called Kivijärvi Resort. The resort’s first completed cabin is called Niliaitta, which refers to the traditional storage structure built at the end of a high pillar, used by the Sámi people to store food and equipment, keeping it safe from the grasp of hungry or curious wildlife. In order to immerse guests of Kivijärvi Resort in the elements of nature as safely, but also as close as possible, Studio Puisto installed a floor-to-ceiling window that stands some distance from the cabin’s deep gable roof. From Niliaitta’s front-facing window, guests enjoy the most dominant landscapes as the cabin’s location was purposefully selected to offer the most unobstructed views of Finland’s forest and nearby body of water.

Algorithms helped design the shape of this Japanese holiday retreat! Designed for idyllic Hokkaido in Japan, the YEZO is a retreat that uses its dramatic landscape and an experimental design approach to create a sanctuary in nature. The YEZO’s overall design is a fusion of both aesthetics and algorithms, optimized for fabrication from one single mold to minimize ecological impact and reduce manufacturing cost and delivery time. It features a unique curved roof that not only creates a spacious interior but even provides a channel for the central chimney while creating a small terrace/skylight in the process. The wooden roof shell structure, clad with regional black slate, consists of sustainable GluLam (glue-laminated) timber beams suspended from a central concrete chimney. “YEZO’s curved GluLam beams are carefully shaped to operate in pure tension throughout, resulting in weight and material reductions of 90% compared to straight beams”, say Kristof and Julien, the designers behind the award-winning retreat. The YEZO Retreat is a winner of the Golden Pin Design Award for the year 2020.

The Mountain Refuge is a wooden, square, prefabricated cabin with an angular roof. While the geometric cabin is a structural contrast to its natural setting, it still blends in well while showing off its modern design. “The project acts as a contemporary interpretation of old traditional mountain refuges, bringing in architectural character and spatial quality,” say the designers. The wooden cabin comes in different modules and each has the capability to be flexible and expandable. It is made to be compact and optimizes the space while taking up the least in nature.

Situated in the Chelav Mountains of Iran’s Mazandaran province sits a beautifully built and serene cabin. Created by Iranian architects Mohammad Hossein Rabbani Zade and Mohammad Mahmoodiye, the structure has been deemed the Lima Cabin. The Lima Cabin and its surrounding mountain landscape is a far cry from the dry, hot, and sandy images of Iran that have been encapsulated in our minds. The architectural escape looks like the perfect vacation getaway, tucked in the midst of trees and lush greenery, promising peace, silence, and a clean break from our bustling everyday lives. Modern, minimal, and clean, the Lima cabin boasts an A-frame structure, although it cannot be compared to the traditional A-frame cabins we are so used to.

Dwelling on Wheels is a 220-square-feet cabin on wheels that buyers can bring with them on the road and situate on coastlines or nearby riverbeds for overnight stays and views. Built to withstand varying climates and temperatures, a steel rib cage and standing seam metal siding wraps around the exterior of DW for a durable and weather-tight finish. Complementing the industrial cottage design, red cedar wood accents warm up the walls, eaves, and even the tiny home’s awning that hangs overhead a durable, ironwood deck, accessible through the dwelling’s double-pane glazed gable door.

Attention all automobile fanatics…and design enthusiasts! If your love for automobiles and architecture has never met before, well they have now in Chris Labrooy’s Winter Cabin. Labrooy wedged the classic Volvo 240 into a quintessential cabin. The Volvo 240 was a vintage wonder, though long and slow, it was considered the ideal family car. Honest and dependable, the 1974’s car became a member of a number of households. Hence it’s no surprise that Labrooy merged it with an adorable little red and white cabin, perfect for those family getaways during the winter vacations. However, Labrooy’s version of the car comprises of two Volvo 240s combined together, creating an inverted mirror image. Slide the structure into a cabin, and you have a quirky architectural concept perfect for all those vintage automobile lovers, who want to take a trip down memory lane!

Meet the Birdbox, a prefabricated shipping container-like cabin by Livit that offers one-of-a-kind escapes to lush destinations surrounded by nature. The cabins are simple, rectangular structures with huge circular and oval windows to give you a larger than life view of nature. Just like the exterior, the interior also has minimal decor which makes for a cozy space with a queen bed and a handful of chairs. The Birdboxes come in two sizes currently – the “Mini” at 10.5’ x 7.2’ x 7.2’ “Mini” and the “Medi” at 16.7’ x 7.87’ x 7.87’.” There’s also a separate “Birdbox Bathroom” which features a black tint one-way glass floor-to-ceiling window.

Boat architect, Kurt Hughes, has designed a tiny home in Central Washington modeled after the lunar lander module and it is truly as close as us civilians can get to having a literal out-of-this-world stay. Hughes handcrafted this tiny home to combine his love for houses and boats, and while we have seen many tiny homes having one that looks like a spaceship capsule is exciting! Why the lunar lander? Because it was a home and a ship. Obviously, it is not as technically complex as a real NASA lunar lander, so living won’t require any special training and it will certainly be more comfortable. Unlike the real Apollo 11 module, this Lunar Lander is very spacious on the inside. The 250 square feet hexagonal pod weighs 3000 pounds and sits on the banks of Columbia river so you have a lot of open ‘space’. There is a small deck for the inhabitants to enjoy the view and Hughes tried to make sure the pod has a minimum impact on the environment around it.

Can’t stop scrolling for more cabin designs? Check out more innovative designs featured on YD here!

10 Women designers with product designs sure to inspire you this International Women’s Day!

#ChooseToChallenge – this is the theme for this year’s celebration of International Women’s Day and I must say this topic boldly echoes the feeling 2021 brings to us – of hope, resilience, and the spirit of challenging for all that is ours! We at Yanko Design have always fought for gender equality in the industrial design industry and to help shine a spotlight on female designers better, we have a dedicated category, titled Womxn Designer, that showcases revolutionary designs by female designers that will surely inspire you. So, the next time someone wishes you a happy women’s day, take a deep breath and let that compliment seep in as a thank you for all the obligations placed on you for being a woman as accept it as a token of the world’s appreciation, after all, it is the women who keep the world going. From all of us at Yanko Design, Happy Women’s Day!

The Elytra table by Radhika Dhumal expands in size by ‘spreading its wings’! The table comes inspired by beetles and the way their wings nest perfectly around their body. The table itself comes with perfectly natural bug-like proportions that fit in well as garden decor and uses two ‘wings’ to expand in the surface, much like the beetle. Elytra’s design is dominated by rounded forms that give it a friendly, pet-like demeanor and feature four legs that are positioned in a way that gives the Elytra its unique, animalistic stance.

DUNSTA was designed by Alexandra Fransson to bring the age-old tradition of storing fresh produce in a natural way while being aligned with your modern lifestyle. It uses evaporative cooling to create an environment similar to that of the root cellar, but for an urban living arrangement – so your fruits and vegetables will stay crispy and fresh longer without needing electricity!

Patchwork is Giulia and Ruggero’s proposed creative design solution for depersonalized home spaces such as reception centers for unhoused individuals. Patchwork is comprised of different, interchangeable panels that fold and expand like a traditional room divider. Patchwork panels provide plenty of different uses for each individual and function as a typical divider, work station, headboard, or some combination from the above. Patchwork incorporates a built-in closet space where users can hang their clothes and, thanks to a concealed padlock accessory, can also stow away personal possessions for secure storage. Patchwork also comes with supplemental shelving units, individual mirrors, and handy hooks so that the additional panels can be outfitted according to each user’s unique needs.

The Blue Box – a tiny at-home device that could detect breast cancer with 95% accuracy by just scanning a urine sample. “A household owning The Blue Box can have all its female members tested at their desired frequency and convenience. After creating a profile at The Blue App, the user just needs to collect some urine in a plastic container and subsequently place it inside The Blue Box”, says Judit Giró Benet, a biomedical engineering student who then went on to found her own company to help develop this technology. The Blue Box uses a proprietary set of cloud-based AI-based algorithms that react to specific urine metabolites, delivering results that are up to 95% accurate!

Using a non-ergonomic mouse, Somya Chowdhary mapped out all the pain points felt on the hand. The process then involved clay modeling to understand how MAUS’ shape and angle would feel with wrist movements and grip. Prototypes were then 3D printed with the final form that ensured the hand stays in a position of rest even when using the mouse. An interesting functionality to cure repetitive strain syndrome was making all controls gesture-based. MAUS also features a digital display – something we haven’t seen in any mice! The body also features Alacantara fabric for a soft touch and comfortable light grip. It has a soft felt base as well as a rubber grip for smooth motions.

Inspired by a recent viewing of a solar eclipse, Adi Goodrich designed Eclipse Booths to offer a photo-visual experience for Instagram users to immerse their grids in the cosmos. Describing the booths in her own words, Goodrich says, “Lit from behind, the round portion of the booth emits a soft, indirect light. The mirrors on the ceiling extend the graphic steps throughout the booth’s interior to allude to… steps leading into eternity.” While one of the booths embodies the night sky with a darker color palette of twilight purple and midnight blue, a cooler, icy light emanates from behind the round plate – mimicking the Moon moving into the Earth’s shadow.

Australian designer Amelia Henderson-Pitman looked within her own country and found that there are more than 1700 species of native bee in Australia, yet only 11 species living in hives and producing honey. Keeping this in mind, she designed Pollen – a modular system that provides a range of nesting materials to support the native bee populations. Pollen can be installed in any location and has also been optimized for small spaces to keep it city-friendly. The idea was to have a modular system that could be integrated anywhere from inner-city gardens to exterior building structures. Pollen is basically The Good Place neighborhood for bees. Each nest module contains a variety of materials like recycled hardwood, sustainable bamboo, or handmade mud brick. They also have a series of holes that vary in diameter to provide nesting locations for bees. The shell of the modules is an injection tube crafted from recycled HDPE and has been designed to be easily assembled as well as mounted without fixtures. I love that the internal modules (molded from recycled PET) are transparent because it offers us a closer look at how the bees are adapting. The transparency of the design shows us that seeing is bee-lieving!

Designed by Jihyun Han, Gosewalk consists of two toy pieces, a multi-surfaced mat that resembles the different terrain found outdoors, and a silicone puzzle that stows away dog treats for your pup to sniff and find. The multi-surfaced mat brings the outdoors to your dog with different fabrics resembling different terrains. Twisted and shaggy polyester mimics the look and feel of grass, while tan corduroy and water-repellant canvas brings the colors of sand and soil to your dog’s snout. Pockets and flaps line the mat’s fabrics and provide perfect hiding places for treats and mixtures of herbs and scents to entertain your pup. The silicone puzzle, which seems to be a smaller, more portable companion piece to the bulkier mat, resembles the look of grass through its tender, spring green silicone nubs that grid the toy.

Revolutionizing how Type 1 Diabetics monitor their blood glucose levels, the Sense Glucose Earring by Tyra Kozlow is an innovative non-invasive wearable that incorporates reads blood-sugar levels in the ear-lobe using safe, high-frequency radio waves. The earring requires just a single lobe piercing (as opposed to the daily pin-prick tests that diabetes patients have to take) and sits on the ear at all times. When you need to read your blood-sugar levels, the earring uses sensors and algorithms to collect data, which is then sent to your smartphone. This massively reduces medical waste, while offering a pain-free solution for checking your sugar levels. At the same time, it turns a medical apparatus into a fashion wearable.

Aditi Kedia’s Prairie Planter reinterprets these containers as landscape-elements in their own right. Designed to look almost like an abstraction of a prairie-grassland landscape, the modular planters stack over one another, resembling mounds of red soil. When paired with succulents or cacti, the Prairie Planters come to life, looking a lot like a savannah landscape! “By adjusting each unit in different orientations, one can play with the shape and placement. The design takes inspiration from how things in nature grow on uneven, unexpected surfaces”, says Aditi, who designed the planters as a part of an Instagram-based design challenge.

Your 2021 Interior Design Lookbook – Winning Interior Projects from the A’ Design Award

I’m aware that the world spent all of last year locked indoors, but believe me, if these ‘indoors’ looked anything like the ones I’m about to show you, I could sit indoors forever! Here to break your ‘Indoor Fatigue’ are some absolutely refreshing Interior Designs from the A’ Design Award and Competition.

Interior Design forms just one of the various categories of the A’ Design Award and Competition, which spans the popular categories like Architecture, Lighting, and Consumer Electronics, as well as the obscure, lesser-known categories like Cybernetics, Prosumer Products, and Safety Apparel Design. The A’ Design Award’s ultimate goal is to be an umbrella that covers good design across all disciplines, which is why it has 100 different categories for submitting design projects, and 218 jury members (comprising academics, design professionals, and press members) from all around the world collectively judging the works. Winners of the A’ Design Award don’t just secure a trophy and a certificate, but receive an entire PR Campaign dedicated towards pushing their career, clout, and even their projects to newer heights. A’ Design Award’s winners and even its participants are included in its annual award book and business network, while additionally contributing to their country’s overall design ranking that paints a holistic picture of how design-centric and design-forward each country is.

Interior Design remains one of the most popular category at the A’ Design Awards, receiving entries by the thousands each year. Here are a few favorites that we wish we had enough money to afford!

Register to participate in the A’ Design Awards now! Hurry, with the final date just 3 weeks away… You still have time to grab yourself an A’ Design Award and make 2021 YOUR year!


01. 4000 Light Restaurant by Niandi Xu

Lighting is perhaps one of the most important aspects of interior design, but it almost always plays a supportive role by illuminating the space. With the 4000 Light Restaurant, the lights define the space. Designed as a fashionable hot pot restaurant for young people, the restaurant cleverly uses lights as a design element, allowing it to define the curves of walls, ceilings, and the individual seating zones (image at the beginning of the article), and be the star element of the restaurant!


02. Guiyang Zhongshuge Bookstore by Xiang Li

Inspired by the natural landscape of the Guizhou region in China, the Guiyang Zhongshuge tries to pay tribute to the area’s cave-like geography with perhaps one of the most appealing looking bookstores I’ve ever seen. The Guiyang Zhongshuge Bookstore makes the terms ‘living under a rock’ and ‘living in a cave’ sound rather appealing with its meandering tunnels that are lined with books from top to bottom. A mirror-finish floor helps complete the illusion by reflecting the semi-circular space to make it look like a fully circular underground tunnel… you know, the kind of underground tunnel a bookworm would enjoy!


03. Commercial Office Space by Shu Yuan Chang

By liberally using white to make the office look airy and spacious, and integrating greenery into the interiors, Shu Yuan Chang’s Commercial Office Space sets the gold standard for office spaces as well as WFH setups! The project, based out of Taipei city, aimed at renovating a rundown office space with a wild backyard. Through the renovation, not only was the backyard garden made into a quaint recreational space, but elements of greenery were brought indoors through the means of a living wall right in the office space, allowing you to work for hours while still feeling connected with the outdoors, and occasionally getting the whiff of fresh air thanks to the wall’s air-purifying ability.


04. Perception Cafe by Haejun Jung – Feelament

While the previous design made use of living walls, the Perception Cafe displays a living ceiling! Carefully shaped wooden elements help turn a boring flat ceiling into an incredibly detailed art installation that gives the room its signature depth. Dubbed by the designer as the “Shading tree”, this organically shaped ceiling extends all the way from the kitchen to the entrance, creating an ambiance that is second to none. “It gives an unusual spatial effect to people and also become a medium for people who want to be lost in thought with flavorous coffee”, says designer Haejun Jung.


05. Phuket VIP Mercury Studio Office by Songhuan Wu

Inspired by the designer’s obsession with the cosmos and astronomy, the Mercury Studio in Phuket looks quite literally out of this world! Combining clean, modern, Bauhaus-esque details with postmodern elements, the Mercury Studio has a quirky appeal that’s undeniable. Combine that with the presence of hemispherical cosmos-inspired design flairs and you’ve got a studio that is just universally appealing!


06. Cozy White Residential by Yu-Chi Liu and Yi-Han Chen

White interiors, a loft-inspired design, and a spiral staircase right in the living room. What more could you ask for?! The Cosy White Residential space uses 80% white paint for a sense of tranquility, interspersed with wooden elements that give the interiors a signature warm coziness. If I had to work from home, this is exactly the kind of home I’d love to work from!


07. Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore by Xiang Li

Yet another bookstore by Xiang Li, the Chongqing Zhongshuge Bookstore is inspired by a mountainous landscape. Creating what feels like an endless facade of books, the Chongqing Zhongshuge uses a stepwell-ish pattern of staircases along with endless walls of books as far as the eye can see. In fact, the ceiling uses a massive mirror to give the space a sense of infinity, allowing you to feel like you’re floating in an Escherian world of books!


08. Omakase Restaurant by Tianwen Sun

Inspired by the ephemeral nature of the Sakura cherry blossoms which disappear after the early-spring rain, the Omakase Restaurant hopes to keep that Sakura spirit immortal by preserving that moment in time. The walls and omakase counters are dotted with sakura patterns, while the floor has pink, edge-lit brick pattern, almost looking like the roads and pavement covered with sakura petals. What’s so lovely about the space is that it interprets nature through an artificial lens, using acrylic, metal, glass, and LEDs, retaining the appeal but in a more modern way.


09. Portugal Vineyards Retail Space by Ricardo Porto Ferreira

If Apple designed a wine shop with a genius bar (literally a bar!), this is what it would look like. The Portugal Vineyards Retail Space uses white walls to show off its reds and whites. The red and white wine bottles are placed on shelves built into the curved walls, almost taking you on a journey as you window-shop. For assistance, an island at the center of the space lets you consult an expert, know more about the wine, or make your purchase. There are tasting booths too, don’t worry!


10. Painted Skin Tattoo Shop by Yalan Zheng

Perhaps one of the most expressive tattoo studios I’ve ever set my eyes on, the Painted Skin Tattoo Shop in Chengdu feels more like a museum than a tattoo studio! Its reception area is modeled on this incredibly detailed Baroque-in-black style, with the use of dark walls and pillars, and a gold chandelier and reception desk. The floor uses an intricate black and white tile system which also finds itself present in the tattoo booths. The tattoo booths are a stark contrast to the baroque reception desk. Designed to look more like a professional dentist setup (I guess the studio has a quirky appeal), the booths use mirrors, and an adjustable medical chair (with a light) to really take your eyes and mind on an unusual, unforgettable journey!


Register Here for the A’ Design Awards and Competition 2020-2021: Deadline 28th February 2021

Yanko Design recommends these award-winning lighting designs to brighten your spaces!

We’re kicking off 2021 with inspirational lighting designs to help ‘spark’ your imagination! Perhaps the most ‘lit’ amongst the A’ Design Award’s multiple categories, this list looks at winning designs from the past year, celebrating good design from the year gone by. The Italy-based A’ Design Awards and Competition have always tried to be more than an award, by creating a multi-disciplinary program that rewards designers while also creating an environment that helps designers grow their products as well as careers… And yes, you also win a shiny trophy.

We look at the top Lighting Designs from last year, creating a compilation of what A’ Design’s stellar 218-member international jury panel deemed worthy of winning the A’ Design Award. While we’re at it, do check out what Winning an Award does for your Design Career, and don’t forget to head down to the A’ Design Award and Competition page to register to submit your design entries for the Award. The last date of submission is February 28th, 2021 and the awards will be announced here on YD on April 15th!

Register to participate in the A’ Design Awards now! Hurry, with the final date just 3 weeks away… You still have time to grab yourself an A’ Design Award and make 2021 YOUR year!


01. Mobius Lamp Lamp by Kejun Li, Zhang Jiahua and Nitesh Narappa Re

Inspired by the shape of the Mobius strip, this lamp transforms the 2D strip-design into a 3D form, creating a bending path of light that looks interesting while illuminating a larger area. While Mobius Strips are known to have a single, continuous surface, the Mobius Lamp sacrifices that detail in an effort to create something arguably more interesting. The 3D lamp has a single illuminating surface that twists around wooden veneers, creating something that looks impressive even when it’s switched off!


02. Pluto Lamp by Heitor Lobo Campos for Gantri

Pluto was inspired by telescopes, which use tripods and dynamic but stable forms… however, instead of having a lamp focusing upward and outward (like telescopes), Pluto shines downward, focusing on the earth in general, and your table, specifically. Designed by Heitor Lobo Campos for 3D-printing lighting company Gantri, Pluto’s form is simple and sensible. A cylindrical lamp rests on 3 legs, giving it a small, stable footprint, while a circular ring that extends around the top works as a handle, allowing you to lift the lamp to move it around, while also sort of making it look like a planet with rings around it. Maybe the lamp should have been called Saturn, eh?!


03. Mobius Pendant Lamp Pendant Lamp by Nhi Ton

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you! This is an example of how a single source of inspiration can lead to two incredible (and award-winning) designs! This Mobius Lamp by Nhi Ton uses a pleated paper design to create a visually interesting light source. Unlike the previous Mobius lamp, this one isn’t a stiff, solid design. The paper construction means the lamp can be played with, twisted, pulled, compressed, and manipulated in all directions. Aside from looking visually exquisite, the lamp also introduces a tactile element, which means you don’t just appreciate the lamp with your eyes, you do so with your hands too!


04. Fragrance Lamp Lighting object by Georgiana Ghit

The Fragrance lamp too, is a multisensorial lamp that targets the visual, tactile, as well as the olfactory senses! Perhaps the first lamp I’ve heard of that also was designed to be smelled, the Fragrance Lamp’s shade uses a combination of dried lavender seeds, buds, and a wooden paste to create something that has the texture and consistency of papier-mache, with the aroma of natural essential oils. If dried and preserved correctly, the lamp will never lose its fragrance. Touch it for texture, smell it for perfume, and switch it on to illuminate spaces… the Fragrance Lamp does things not many lamps are capable of doing!


05. Frutta Lamp by Masashi Yamanaka and Kaori Osawa

The name hints at the product’s source of inspiration! Designed to mimic the act of picking a fruit off a tree, the Frutta lamp is an orb-shaped lighting device with an ecosystem of lamp-stands that range from a floor-standing ‘tree’, to a tabletop ‘shrub’, to a fruit tray! The lamp can be mounted (and charged) on any of these stands, and the purpose of the stand is to really drive home the story behind the product while the interaction of ‘plucking’ the fruit reinforces this award-winning lamp’s powerful story!


06. Oplamp Table Lamp by Sapiens Design Studio

The Oplamp has three different avatars within the same body! Its strange shape (reminds me of the Wacom logo) features three intersecting hollow cones, with a lamp at the center. Place the Oplamp any way you want by resting it on any of the three surfaces and the remaining two cones point the light in different directions. The three differently shaped and angled cones allow the light to point in a variety of directions, depending on which cone you use as the base. It’s a clever little trick that allows the Oplamp to be an ambient light, an accent light, or even a table-lamp!


07. Poise Adjustable Table Lamp by Dabi Robert

Minimal, contemporary, flexible – these three words perfectly capture the Poise lamp’s features and its inherent appeal. The adjustable table-lamp has a unique halo-shaped light mounted on a vertical channel that rests on the lamp’s base. With a total of 3 swivel joints at the top and the bottom of the vertical channel, the Poise can be rotated up to 320 degrees and be adjusted in multiple ways, creating a unique combination of geometric forms each time!


08. Wave Lamp by Mario Mazzer

The Wave Lamp isn’t so much about the light itself as it is about how the light reacts to the lamp’s frilly surface. Created using multiple wavy plastic elements, the floor lamp has almost a coral chandelier quality to it. The lamp has a visual duality. When lit, the waves that reflect the light create a suggestive chiaroscuro effect giving the lamp a visual perception of depth which changes depending upon the viewing angle. The light beam sways thanks to the wavy rings of the lamp creating evocative shadows. When switched off, the lamp appears more dense and sculptural.


09. Dorian Architectural Lamp by Marcello Colli

Designed with a dual purpose, the geometric Dorian Lamp comes with a slim metal frame that has an independently rotating disc within it. On one side of the disc is a mirror, while the other is a lamp. Marcello Colli calls the Dorian’s frame and use of geometry essentialist, not minimalist. It’s a way of understanding that every part of the lamp plays an essential role, be it the frame, which holds the main unit aloft, or the rotating disc, which serves as illumination when you need it to, and reflection when you want it to.


10. E Drum Kinetic Electronic Drums Show by Idan Herbet

Easily the most unusual entry in this design round-up, the E Drum also echoes the philosophy of multi-sensorial design. Can light be heard? Surely not, right? But what if I reframe the question… how much of the experience of a musical concert is JUST in the listening? Light plays an incredibly important role in bringing music concerts to life, which is why there’s a euphoria associated with seeing your favorite artist perform on a stage versus listening to them on Spotify. E Drum was created to give the audience an extraordinary experience they had never seen before. Every aspect of the drummer’s performance was re-engineered simply to make it more visual, more dramatic. From the 360° layout (which is designed in a way to make the drums at the back visible too), to the fact that each drum is ring-lit, the E Drum is an audiovisual treat. Moreover, when the drummer hits the beat, it sends a MIDI signal to the light around the drum, creating almost a Guitar Hero-ish experience in real life, where the light dances to the beat of the drums!


Register Here for the A’ Design Awards and Competition 2020-2021: Deadline 28th February 2021

Here are the 3 countries leading the World Design Rankings in 2021

It’s been a pretty eventful year last year, but I’m glad we’re through with it and we’ve got a lot to look forward to, including this year’s A’ Design Award World Design Rankings. We enter into 2021 with last year’s rankings standing as they are (the charts will only be updated after the A’ Design Awards announce their results in April), but it’s important to look at the progress we’ve made in 2020. Standing firmly at the top of the World Design Rankings are China, USA, and Japan with a total of 3791 awards between them through the years.

The list, created by the A’ Design Awards and Competition organization aims at capturing the year on year design progress of each country. Featuring as many as 108 nations on the list, the World Design Rankings are an ever-changing, ever-evolving set of rankings that wholly encapsulate design progress through their awards program. With the 2020-2021 edition still accepting submissions, it’ll be interesting to see how the rankings change this year. If you want to see your country on the top (along with showcase your best work to the world) take a look at our article on what Design Awards can do for your Career.

We’ve meticulously compiled a few of the top awarded designs from the 3 leading countries that shone at the A’ Design Award. Scroll below to see our selection and if you do want to help your country rise higher up the design rankings, the A’ Design Awards are still accepting submissions till the 28th of February! Every entry you submit raises your country’s score (even more if it wins an award!).

Register Here for the A’ Design Awards and Competition 2019-2020: Deadline 28th February 2020

01. Cady Smart Cane by Harvard University (USA)

Introducing tech in a relevant way to the elderly, the Cady is a smart cane that helps correct gait, track activity, set goals, works as an SOS remote, and lets you contact physicians and therapists whenever needed. The tech lies entirely within Cady’s handle, which snaps onto a bespoke cane, made to the length of the person who needs it. It uses a series of subtle vibrations to help correct the walker’s gait, reducing chances of them falling and/or injuring themselves, while keeping tabs on the user’s movement, activity, allowing them to set personal goals as well as share data with their therapist or doctor. At the end of the day, the handle snaps right off the cane and docks into its own charging station so it can be used another day. There’s even a light built into the back to work as a visual alert.


02. Acorn Leisure Chair by Wei Jingye, Chen Yufan and Wang Ruilin (China)

Designed to be a resting area both for you as well as your pet, the Acorn Leisure Chair turns the space underneath the seat into an enclosure for small animals. The chair’s organic curves come inspired from its namesake, the acorn, and its base heavy design provides the perfect resting space for your pet, while allowing you to easily (and comfortably) sit on top. The wooden parts of the chair are CNC-machined to perfection, while the wrought-iron pipes on the base give the chair its sturdiness, while allowing your pets to see your legs as they sit inside their safe-space, providing a unique connection between both occupants! Alternatively, you could use the space under the seat to store books and pillows too.


03. Relax Smartphone Stand by Kenji Fujii (Japan)

This clever little stand turns your phone into a virtual fireplace! Meet the Relax, a 3D-printed smartphone stand that lets you play a looped video of a burning fire while it charges. Designed to be more than just an average charging stand, the Relax helps you unwind too. Once you dock it in, you’re less likely to use your phone to aimlessly browse the internet or doomscroll. Besides, that quirky virtual fireplace should really help calm you down and achieve a little zen!


04. Pluto Lamp by Heitor Lobo Campos for Gantri (USA)

Pluto was inspired by telescopes, which use tripods and dynamic but stable forms… however, instead of having a lamp focusing upward and outward (like telescopes), Pluto shines downward, focusing on the earth in general, and your table, specifically. Designed by Heitor Lobo Campos for 3D-printing lighting company Gantri, Pluto’s form is simple and sensible. A cylindrical lamp rests on 3 legs, giving it a small, stable footprint, while a circular ring that extends around the top works as a handle, allowing you to lift the lamp to move it around, while also sort of making it look like a planet with rings around it. Maybe the lamp should have been called Saturn, eh?!


05. Airwood Multifunctional Wooden Drone by Uavi Technology (China)

The Airwood puts a creative spin on drone tech that works brilliantly for a number of reasons. The drone ships flat-packed, with its body-parts laser cut out of pieces of plywood, allowing it to take much less space while shipping. Just put the wooden pieces and the tech elements together and you have a fully-functional quad-propeller drone with a remote that even lets you dock your smartphone! On the off chance that your drone’s wooden body sustains some damage, you can easily use its negative (from the original plywood sheet) as a template to craft new pieces, allowing you to fix and upgrade your drone on the fly. It’ll save you cash in the long run, and hey, you’ll even learn how to assemble drones in the process!


06. Cloud Chair by Shota Urasaki (Japan)

Capturing perhaps every child’s dream, the Cloud Chair gives you the feeling of sitting on a floating cloud. Unlike traditional chairs with 3-4 legs, the Cloud Chair is elevated using multiple metal rods, not only giving the cloud its perceived lightness and airy-ness, but also resembling steady drops of rain falling from the cloud’s underbelly. The inspiration for the chair came to Shota Urasaki after she saw a moving cloud raining over a distant coastline. Inspiration immediately struck and the Cloud Chair was born. The seat comes made from clusters of polyester fibers pierce-fitted into a block of polyurethane foam to give the visual as well as the tactile appeal of a puffy cloud. The seat rests on multiple stainless steel supports, with a mirror at its base to give the rain an illusion of continuity. Clever, eh??


07. Arc Guitar Stand by Hung Yuan Chang (USA)

The Arc Guitar Stand has an incredible sculptural quality to it, which is unusual for a product that’s usually designed to be really functional. A guitar stand is usually quite an unassuming product that fundamentally exists as a background element to the guitar, which sits atop it. With the Arc, the stand has an aesthetic appeal that makes it look beautiful even when there isn’t a guitar resting on it. Besides, its design does a pretty good job of propping up the instrument too!


08. Invisible Speaker by Eogo Sound Shenzhen Co., Ltd (China)

Meet the Invisible Speaker, a loudspeaker that’s slim enough to fit right into your drywall. Measuring a mere 33mm in thickness, the Invisible Speaker uses aerospace-grade materials to achieve its slim profile, while relying on a clever honeycomb-inspired cabinet design and surface audio technology to produce balanced, full-range audio with minimal to no distortion in a 180° span, covering practically your entire room without even being visible!


09. Cloud of Luster Wedding Chapel by Tetsuya Matsumoto (Japan)

This wedding chapel’s unusual amoeboid shape gives one the appearance of being inside a cloud… a fitting metaphor for people who literally feel like they’re on the top of the world when they get married! The Cloud of Luster’s white ceiling gives it a certain austerity that’s hard to ignore, and those gently descending pillars make the architecture look unconventionally light. Couple that with the fact that the entire chapel floats on a man-made pond and you get some dazzling reflections of the space on the water below. Truly a magical sight for people wanting to celebrate their magical moment, if you ask me!


Register Here for the A’ Design Awards and Competition 2019-2020: Deadline 28th February 2020