Minimal Architectural designs that prove why this trend always reigns supreme in the world of architecture!

There’s something about Minimalism that simply never goes out of style! And, minimal architecture just has a soft spot in my heart! Minimal architectural designs will always leave you with a warm feeling in your heart, an intense admiration for the attention to detail, and the delicate touches each structure consists of. They’re simple but smartly designed spaces that radiate an aura of warmth and calmness. And we’ve curated some of our favorite minimal structures for you! From a zen minimalist cabin that keeps the worldly distractions away to a Japanese-inspired residence that features a multi-tiered sloping roof – these exquisite minimal architectural designs make for perfect living spaces that’ll put your mind, heart, and soul at ease!

1. Hara House

Hara House is built out of 5-inch square timbers set 6 feet apart. A tent-like white steel rooftop the home mixes private spaces with a semipublic, open-air living and dining area – a stiff, yet giving structure that assimilates all human behaviors. “The estate already contained an assemblage of buildings and farmland that depended on one another. Our design direction was to create a home that revitalized these on-site structures and had the potential to adapt to new functions as the need or mood changed,” explains architect Takayuki Shimada.

2. The Nook

Brimming with artisanal goods and artwork of local craftsmen and artists, The Nook was designed to bring the handcrafted touch of the old world into the modern era. Described as a “collection of stories,” Belleme designed The Nook to link his personal history to the surrounding forest and architecture of the cabin. The tiny cabin is constructed from a collection of locally felled trees that Belleme memorized during a five-year stint spent in the Appalachian woods, during which he learned primitive building skills like creating a path of hand-split logs that leads to The Nook’s front entrance.

3. The Archipelago House

Norm Architects built the Archipelago House on the coast of Sweden. This beautiful holiday home is clad in pine and is a culmination of both Scandinavian and Japanese aesthetics. The minimal pine-wood home features gabled roofs, that are inspired by the boathouses that float along the nearby seashore. Norm Architects created the home in the hope that “The building should look natural to the site and put the focus on the beautiful surroundings and the life unfolding in the place rather than the building itself.” The use of natural materials within the home creates an atmosphere that is truly Scandinavian in nature.

4. Birdbox

Birdbox is actually a prefabricated shipping container-like cabin 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.

5. The Luna

The Luna is a tiny cabin from New Frontier Design that combines modern design elements with rustic appeal for a tiny cabin that’s destined for the winter. Defined by an asymmetrical roofline, The Luna embraces a geometric, angular profile to complement the natural ruggedness of snow-covered plots of land. Combining rustic energy with modern design, The Luna is clad in matte black, 100-year corrugated steel for a lived-in, yet contemporary look. New Frontier decided against filling up The Luna’s lengthier facades with windows, opting instead for a sweeping, floor-to-ceiling window wall on one end.

6. Canton House

Marc Thorpe, architect, and designer extraordinaire, recently unveiled his design for Canton House, a cluster of off-grid cabin hotels in the forest of Romania’s Carpathian Mountains that are built from locally harvested timber and inspired by the surrounding area’s vernacular architecture. In Romania, rural towers and spires of religious centers are often defined by their fully-shingled wooden construction. Inspired by the local area’s shingled roofs and facades, Thorpe clad Canton House’s trio of cabins, from top to bottom in blackened, locally sourced timber, wrapping the exterior facades in uniform wooden shingles. The triangular roof stems from Canton House’s rectangular front facade.

7. Edifice

Designed by Marc Thorpe, Edifice is a simple black off-grid cabin in Upstate New York. It’s been neatly tucked into the Catskill Mountains, situated in the little village of Fremont. The cabin features a single bedroom and occupies a total of 500 square meters. It’s nestled amongst trees, creating a quaint and quiet spot, that functions as a wonderful retreat in the midst of nature. The cabin was built as an example of “introverted architecture”, and is a self-sustaining structure that was an “exercise in reduction”. The little box is clad in stained cedar and features a simple rectangular form. The walls on the southern and western sides have thin windows, providing views of the surrounding greenery.

8. Four Leaves Villa

Four Leaves Villa designed by Kentaro Ishida Architects Studio (KIAS) is a form of organic architecture with a gently twisted, multi-tiered roof that mimics the sloping curve of fallen leaves and a central garden courtyard, the home’s concealed centerpiece. 150 kilometers from the buzzing city streets of Tokyo, Japan, a forested plot of land in Karuizawa, Nagano prefecture of Japan, is home to a weekend retreat designed to mirror the fallen leaves that surround it. Dubbed Four Leaves Villa, the privately-owned residence is a form of organic architecture with a split-level roof designed by Kentaro Ishida Architects Studio (KIAS) that mimics the undulating, overlapping pattern of fallen leaves.

9. The Eibche

The Eibche by Shomali Design takes the cabin game to a new level by incorporating the best of Balinese culture, modern architecture, and cozy interiors. The elevated structure weaves concrete and bamboo into its design. The team has used locally sourced building materials – wood for the structure and a brick-stone combination for the foundation. The frame is then ‘cemented’ by concrete which brings in a hint of modern minimalist architecture. The designers chose organic materials in order to create harmony with the environment so Eibche showcases a lot of bamboo poles, woven bamboo, coconut wood, and teak wood in both the interior as well as exterior.

10. The House of Many Courtyards

Swedish architecture studio Claesson Koivisto Rune designed a Scandinavian holiday home called the House of Many Courtyards. The home basically consists of interconnected box-like structures that are surrounded by beautiful courtyards. A 40-meter long corridor artfully connects all the minimal boxes. All the boxy structures feature varied heights, hence creating a geometrically unique holiday home that serves as an intriguing spatial experience. Sliding doors allow you to seamlessly step out of the home, and into the serene courtyards. It’s the perfect integration of indoor and outdoor living!

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This minimalist table-light distills the idea of a lamp into its most basic elements – a light, and a shade

Created to explore the relationship between Changhojis (paper doors found in traditional Asian homes) and lights, the Light Kyeol Series comes with a bulb and an interchangeable card-like shade that sits in front of the light source, diffusing it. The cards use a variety of paper types, including textured, colored, and handmade, to explore the way they disperse light.

The series features different lamp styles with the same concept of having a sheet of paper propped up or suspended in front of a light source. The lamp’s relatively dim, casting an ambient glow around the room, while the choice of paper definitely gives it its own flavor, bringing a slightly rustic appeal to the lamp’s design.

It’s difficult to correctly place the lamp’s design in a particular box. It’s a combination of minimalism, traditionalism, craft, and even a bit of steampunk. The lamp’s variants explore simple designs and shapes, experimenting with intersections and overlapping elements, and the lamp series’ construction uses a limited caché of materials, from brass and acrylic for the base and frame, and Korean paper for the shades.

Designers: HyeokRoh, Jonggun Kim, Hyoin Son

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This Japanese A-frame structure looks like a cozy Ghibli movie home got a modern yet minimal makeover!

Japanese architecture is the epitome of minimalism and warmth, especially when it takes shape as an A-frame cabin. The Japanese culture and lifestyle have many deep-rooted practices about reducing waste, using only what you need, and living with essentials but not necessarily without luxury. All of these elements are seen in Hara House, an A-frame cabin that is all about minimizing your footprint, being efficient, and using as little material as possible. It was designed for a young couple who wanted a new home in a small agricultural village about four hours north of Tokyo that would restore the fading communal connection that they were witnessing.

Hara House is built out of 5-inch square timbers set 6 feet apart. A tent-like white steel rooftop the home mixes private spaces with a semipublic, open-air living and dining area – a stiff, yet giving structure that assimilates all human behaviors. “The estate already contained an assemblage of buildings and farmland that depended on one another. Our design direction was to create a home that revitalized these on-site structures and had the potential to adapt to new functions as the need or mood changed,” explains architect Takayuki Shimada.

The A-frame structure draped over a rectangular interior volume was the solution to create that semi-public space the couple desired. A set of parallel glass doors in the central living/dining room allows air to flow through the home and connect the residents with neighbors passing along the adjacent street. Instead of a traditional self-reliant building, Hara House is a space where workshops, meetings, and events can spill out onto the land and open the home to the village.

Two parallel pitches expose the central living and dining room to the outside air via sliding glass doors. The low openings give the impression of a tent that’s been propped up to reveal what’s going on inside and is reminiscent of older Japanese architecture. An open space on one side of the structure serves as an entrance and an informal gathering spot for the community while the covered, veranda-like spaces on both sides provide shady areas to sit and relax. The heart of Hara House is the large living/dining area that simple radiates warmth!

At one end of the first floor, a small bedroom and a bathroom create a private living area for the family. There is a loft area above that features a cozy workspace. The sleeping zone is on the first floor which has a spacious master bedroom. Interiors feature minimalist shelves for storage and a large pane of glass brightens the space as well as the loft above. Hara House’s high ceiling creates the traditional tent-like vibe, while the raised platform serves as seating as well as additional storage space.

“We started our design by conceptualizing the building as incomplete. The home should invite people from the village to utilize it, thus becoming part of the community. By establishing this type of architecture, with its blank canvas, a space is born that establishes itself as an attraction of interest and activity,” says Shimada. Hara House looks like a house from a Ghibli movie but with a modern makeover that doesn’t strip the magic from a wooden A-frame structure. It is reminiscent of a glowing lantern in the night that welcomes the community into a safe space.

Designer: Takeru Shoji Architects

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From cats to birds, these minimal animal sculptures have been created from strips of coiled metal!

Korean artist Lee Sangsoo forges colorful and spiraled animal sculptures. Defined as ‘drawings in the air’ – his collection of animals includes cats, flamingoes, poodles, parrots, and other interesting creatures! His minimal sculptures are built from resin or stainless steel – depending upon the size of the piece. If the piece spans more than one meter, Sangsoo uses stainless steel to create it. Each angled side is delicately coated with soft gradients or a subtle and complementary palette. The three dimensional and towering sculptures have been inspired by Picasso’s little abstract animal drawings. What a wonderful contrast, no? Sangsoo even goes on to say, “Lines, planes, and colors are important elements that work in my work. The lines drawn in the two-dimensional sketchbook determine the large flow and form of the work, and it becomes three-dimensional in the three-dimensional space. The square lines are shown in various shapes and colors according to the flow and twist, and you can feel the dynamism in the still work. Also, depending on the flow, the thickness of the lines may be rhythmically thickened or thinned.”

Designer: Lee Sangsoo

My love for cats is no suprise! And this playful and agile cat has my heart. The sculpture strikes a pose in his most flexbile position, almost crouching on the floor. I wonder if the kitty is getting ready to play or hunt! The colors of the cat range from a light nude to shades of dark brown.

This colorful parrot rests peacefully on its bird stand. The sharp detailing of its body and wings, and its intricately carved beak make it look almost life-like! Green, red, blue, and yellow accents highlight the beautiful parrot.

The body of this swan is a spiral of hues of blues, teals, and violets! I can completely imagine the exquisite swan lounging peacefully on a lake. Sangsoo’s love and appreciation for animals are artfully reflected in his sculptures.

Two baby pink flamingoes in love! The tall and imposing flamingoes seem to be the complete opposite of Picasso’s abstract animal drawings, but at the same time, a sheer simplicity and elegant beauty are seen in between both.

This multicolored reindeer instantly puts me in a Christmassy mood! Although Christmas is a while away. Slender limbs, an intertwined and spiraling body, and well-crafted horns make this sculpture unique and precise.

Since Sangsoo has covered most of the animals, he had to add a doggo or two to the mix! Sangsoo chose to create a spiraling poodle who somehow manages to look fluffy as well. The color palette almost reminds me of different colored candy floss!

This clucking hen looks ready to fly away, only if it could. Sangsoo chose the colors of sunset for this sculpture, and something about it gives me a warm and rustic feeling, almost as if I were about to enter a farm.

This lightweight drip coffee maker made from heat-resistant glass comes in a portable travel case for coffee to go!

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

The “Minimal” is a travel drip coffee maker that’s portable and lightweight by design, offering a technical build to ensure the perfect drip with each brew.

Coffee drinking is serious business. No matter where we might find ourselves when we wake up in the morning, there’s only one thing on our minds: coffee. Possibly one of the worst feelings in the world is when you’re craving a cup of coffee but don’t have access to one. Whether you’re camping or just away from your favorite coffee shop, having a travel coffee maker is essential. Minimal, a travel drip coffee maker designed by Eilong ensures you’ll never be without coffee, wherever you might find your mornings.

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Encased in a vinyl travel case, Minimal is made up of a glass dripper and cup, and a filter stand stocked with reusable cloth filters. Both the glass dripper and cup are made from borosilicate glass to ensure the same quality heat resistance found in glassware like Pyrex and lab flasks.

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Minimal also comes with a wooden lid that doubles as a coaster so when you’re camping, you’ll always have a place to set your cup. Minimal was designed to be portable, so the whole set allows room for around 9.5 oz of liquid, just the right amount of coffee to get you through the morning. The glass filter and cloth filters were both shaped into a cone to ensure strong brews and the ideal drip speed.

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

All of the items that comprise Minimal can be consolidated into the vinyl travel case and come with a leather grip loop so it’s easy to bring Minimal with you wherever you go. Recognized by the Red Dot jury for its portability and organic materials used in construction, the Red Dot Award jury notes, “Natural materials promote a way of preparing coffee that is perceived as ­highly original. The astonishing functionality of this set is highly convincing.”

Designer: Eilong

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

All the contents of Minimal fit into one another to optimize portability. 

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Encased in a vinyl travel case, Minimal is the ideal camping companion for morning brews.

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

The wooden top of Minimal doubles as a coaster. 

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

The leather grip on Minimal’s glassware allows for easy handling without feeling the full heat from the coffee. 

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

Portable by design, Minimal is small enough to take with you on the go.

Drip Coffee Maker Red Dot Design Award

The cloth filters that come with Minimal can be washed and reused with each new brew. 

The post This lightweight drip coffee maker made from heat-resistant glass comes in a portable travel case for coffee to go! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Is this an ambient lamp that also tells the time? Or is it a clock that doubles as a mood light?





Light and time have a pretty old bond. In science, light and time are collectively used to determine the ‘light year’, a unit of measurement used to describe the distance between intergalactic objects. The speed of light is also a universal constant, and a physical barrier that Einstein says is impossible to break… but the scientific connotations aside, light was used to tell the time back before clocks were invented. The sundial is perhaps one of the oldest man-made time-telling instruments there are – and they relied on the sun’s shadow to give one a rough estimate of the time of the day (in fact, that’s where the phrase is believed to have originated from, since we couldn’t really tell the ‘time of the night’).

Now that we’ve got that history lesson out of the way, let’s look at the Helix lamp, an aesthetic and modern reinterpretation of light’s association with time. The Helix Lamp uses shafts of light to tell the time. Rather than relying on the conventional hands-pointing-at-numbers approach, Helix uses slightly offset (or helical) discs that project a channel of light. At night, the channel of light acts as a visual indicator of a clock-hand, and in the day, the disc’s offset casts a shadow, acting as a hand (quite like a sundial).

The Helix Lamp uses two such rotating discs to display the hours and minutes. It works as a clock throughout the day, but a small switch on the top allows you to toggle its lighting function. Hit the button and the hands light up, while the back of the lamp casts a halo of diffused light against the wall behind it, allowing the Helix’s minimal silhouette to show. Simple, yet incredibly sophisticated.

Designer: Josh Connor

Furniture Designs to add a touch of Japandi minimalism + aesthetics to your home!

I absolutely love minimal furniture designs! A subtle and simple piece of furniture can truly complete a room. It can be the final piece that makes a space come full circle, building a comfortable and cohesive haven, rather than a random area. Furniture pieces make or break a home, they add on to the essence or soul of a home, hence one needs to be extremely picky while choosing a furniture design. The design should be a reflection of you, and what you want your home to be. When you place a piece of furniture in a room, it should instantly integrate with the space, creating a wholesome and organic environment. And I believe minimal furniture designs do exactly that! Hence, we’ve curated a collection of furniture designs that truly embody minimalism and its quaint simplicity and zen-ness. Add these pieces to your home to create a living space that truly feels like yours! Enjoy!

The Piano desk gives that traditional piano design a nod by incorporating it into your familiar wooden desk with some additional inspiration from the Standard chair by Jean Prouvé that elevates the minimal piece. The Piano desk created so the designer could experiment with a hybrid material selection and play with interesting visual contrasts. On the one hand, we have metal which is a cold material that is beautifully balanced by the warmer wood. On the other hand, the same metal which allows for a slimmer silhouette is given the sturdiness with the addition of wood. The key factor in the briefing was to design a product with a democratic approach. That is how the minimal desk without any complex production processes was born while still featuring a small design element that other minimal desks didn’t have – the dipped shelf!

The Ark desk was designed for a client who wanted to increase the functionalities of his traditional table/desk – a need we have all realized during this pandemic. Ark is minimal in its design yet maximizes its surface area. The interesting thing about Ark’s design is that it can switch identities between the writing desk and the dressing table. The mirror is an optional feature for the desk, you can move its position based on what you are using it for. One of its sides is a downwards flanging cabinet included to increase storage. It provides a space for keeping cosmetics during dressing, books, or work-related files which ensures that the desktop space is clutter-free. The cabinet also keeps the items stored hidden from the front view which makes the overall visual of Ark a very clean and pleasing one!

Paperclip Chair by Andrew Edge

Paperclip Chair by Andrew Edge

Stationery and Furniture really don’t have that much influence over one another. Just given their sheer size difference, the way a piece of stationery interacts with its surroundings is vastly different from how a piece of furniture does, considering its scale. However, Boston-based designer Andrew Edge is hoping to switch things up with the Paperclip Chair, a rather minimalist piece of furniture with oddly pleasing paperclip-shaped legs. The legs come with curved, angled forms made from metal piping, upon which rests the seat, yet another minimally designed detail.

Sideboards are not thought of as dynamic or interactive but this furniture piece adds movement to the otherwise traditionally mundane design. It showcases a technical/mechanical approach to designing a sideboard and uses a combination of bearings + linkages for the sliding mechanism. The fun detail is that these are exposed and add more character to the piece. The front panel swivels over and the linkages push the drawer out. It’s crafted from maple and walnut wood with a glass top which gives it an evergreen aesthetic. The combination of woodwork and mechanics makes it an elegant vintage vibe. Sideboard has a universal appeal and the mechanism makes it more accessible for storing daily-use items as opposed to a junk closet.

The minimal furniture collection uses clean lines focused around an elevated seat, bringing to mind the stunning visuals of the Gargantua black hole portrayed in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. The story goes like this – Eugénie von Tunzelmann, a CG supervisor at Double Negative, generated a flat, multicolored ring – a stand-in for the accretion disk – and positioned it around their spinning black hole. Something very, very weird happened. ‘We found that warping space around the black hole also warps the accretion disk, so rather than looking like Saturn’s rings around a black sphere, the light creates this extraordinary halo.’ This warping halo brings to mind the lines showcased in this design. The furniture itself boasts of low tables that work as a coffee table as well as a bench, given the changing width of the design.

This chair is an amazing display of nostalgia and minimalism through furniture design. The designer wanted to incorporate our inherent ways of interacting with nature into a chair. Stubby chair was inspired by these environmental settings that combined the love for interiors with an element from the exterior world. Nature is the best designer (for the most part!) so observing nature gives the designer a lot of clues and points of directions where they should pay attention so it fits seamlessly into our lives. “Over time, you settle down with some household items, borrowed from nature. At the same time, you understand that the world is changing and you are changing with it,” she says describing the simplistic design which can age with time.

Winner of the Golden Pin Design Award, the Bien Bien Cat Tree by Cheng-Liang Wu and Chia-Wen Lin is a cat tree that also masterfully doubles up as a piece of furniture. It’s a beautiful product that caters to the needs of both your cat (s) and you, functioning as a space that can be utilized and shared by humans and felines alike. You can build the modular cat tree all by yourself, its modularity allows it to be assembled in various ways, according to personal requirements, space restrictions, and of course, the moods of your cat. There are several shelving options for you to store your precious belongings in, as well as little nooks and crannies for your pet to sleep and play around in. Multiple accessories can be attached as means of recreation for your cat, and my favorite one, hands down, is the tiny hammock!

Nail four legs together put a seat on top, you have yourself a stool. That’s what the most simplistic and basic form of a stool is – four wooden legs capped with a circular or square seat. Award-winning designer João Teixeira, however, is challenging the notion of what that basic archetype of a wooden stool should look like. His design, the Knot Stool, makes use of wood in an unusual way, lending it an appearance that resembles the styles of metal and plastic furniture. The Knot uses a lathe-spun seat beneath which sit three steam-bent wooden legs, giving the stool a fun, funky facelift.

Designed by Annabella Hevesi, there is something about the ODU Desk that instantly puts me at ease. It’s just so well-designed! Clean, minimal, and soft, it’s a desk that almost gives me Japandi feels. (Japandi is a growing design trend that merges Japanese and Scandinavian aesthetics.) It’s a warm wooden desk with a protective screen around it that ensures you have your privacy while working! It shuts off the outside world and helps you focus completely on your work. Not to mention, the wooden desk top has been integrated with little storage containers! These containers are perfect for storing your office stationery, souvenirs, and other knick-knacks you may want to place on your desk. An interesting feature is that you can actually remove and separate the containers from the desk. This is perfect for when you want to clean the nooks and crannies of the desk.

The Bandage Sofa is quite self-explanatory in its approach. The sofa uses a bandage in either the same color or a contrasting hue to hold your cushions in place – whether you choose to arrange for comfort or style! When members of the Bogdanova Bureau team started to design this sofa, they first thought about comfort. The first thing you imagine when you think about the couch is a dozen uncomfortable pillows, moving from side to side and making your rest miserable. With Bandage Sofa, your cushions stay just the way you want them to! The clean lines muted yet modern tones, and sleek design makes it a perfect match for every interior setting.

The ABC 500 motorcycle is an absolute masterclass in minimal automotive design

With a design that’s just about as bare-basics as its name, the ABC 500 from A Bike Company (talk about no-frills) shows how ‘no design can also be good design.’

Challenging the very notion of automotive design, the ABC 500 actually champions the ‘lack of design’. Every part of the bike is exposed to the elements with an aesthetic verging on dirt-bike territory. Its lack of mass notwithstanding, the bike still manages to have immense character. It’s almost alien-like in how it looks defyingly-slim yet so well-poised… with perhaps its only solid mass being its fuel tank.

Designer: Niki Smart A Bike Company

Although it may seem fairly simple to put together a bike without any bodywork, balancing it visually can be quite tricky… something the ABC 500 does quite effortlessly. If the posture of a bike is comparable to a jungle cat, the ABC 500 is an incredibly lean mammal with a toned torso. The fuel tank has the most visual mass in the motorcycle and your eye is first drawn to it, followed by how the tank’s upper contour translates out the back into that slick, cantilevered seat. On the opposite end of the tank (the front) is perhaps one of the most interesting suspensions you’ll see. First developed in the 70s by Norman Hossack, the Hossack suspension uses a linkage-style arrangement to help smoothen out a bumpy ride. The suspension visually dominates the front of the bike, and is accompanied by just a speedometer on the top. In an unusual design choice, the LED projector headlights are located on the right-hand fork, just slightly above the front wheel’s axle.

The eyes then gravitate to the unsettlingly thin and large 26-inch wheels, which complement the motorbike’s no-frills aesthetic perfectly, and come with carbon-fiber spokes attached to an aluminum hub. The rear wheel connects to the base of the seat via the rear shock absorber, with the bike’s slim taillight located right above it, sitting underneath the carbon/kevlar fiber stressed seat.

The ABC 500 comes outfitted with a 1980 Honda XL500s 500cc Engine (giving it its name) and a 5-speed gearbox pumping out a ballpark of 33hp. The bike comes fitted with a standard Keihin carburetor, with a rapid-prototyped custom air-intake trumpet mounted with a conical air filter.

As minimal as it looks, the ABC 500 took a whopping 10 years to design. It’s a common trap to think that minimal design ‘takes less time/effort’ because of its seemingly minimal nature, however, the ABC 500 is an absolute masterclass in creating visual poetry with as little as possible. Everything from the choice of parts and material, to its colors, symmetry, and silhouette, is a lesson in how a bike that looks as sleek and slender as the ABC 500 can look just as menacingly capable and powerful as even the burliest and bulkiest of superbikes.

This handmade wooden amplifier is ditching the notion that all guitar amps should be ‘black boxes’





If you really think about it, there’s no reason for amps to look the way they do. Somewhere down the line Marshall or Fender just embraced the black box style and it became an unsaid rule that all guitar amplifiers should be perfectly cuboidal and pitch-black with a faux leather texture. Guitar amps have been in line for a visual upgrade for quite some time now, and Belgium-based boutique amp brand has just the answer. Partnering with designer Joeri Claeys, the amp-makers have unveiled the GT Deluxe, a soft, minimal, earthy amp that uses bent plywood for a radically fresh aesthetic. The GT Deluxe doesn’t fit into the archetype of your regular guitar amp – it sports a rounded-rectangle design that feels as refreshing as the rounded rectangle icons on the iPhone did after years of square icons on Nokia phones. The amp’s rounded edges give it a distinctly warm appearance that fits well in studios, jam-rooms, or at house concerts. The amps still stack one above another, retaining their modular functionality.

Designed to usher a renaissance moment for guitar amps, the GT Deluxe embraces its wooden aesthetic. It comes with a black fabric clad on the front (as opposed to the grilles seen on regular amps) with Da Capo’s logo embroidered on, and has a beautiful leather-strap handle that lets you carry it around. “The main focus was on creating a minimalistic contemporary guitar amp that suits every interior”, Claeys mentioned. “Since most guitar amplifiers have looked the same for years, it was time to rethink its form for today’s musician.”

Each GT Deluxe cabinet comes made from Beechwood veneer that’s first bent into its signature rounded-rectangle shape before being finished to perfection using CNC machining. It’s capped off with an authentic leather handle on the top, and the formed front and back panels are wrapped with a black textile by Scandinavian brand Kvadrat. The dashboard on the top even comes with its own hidden LED backlight system that illuminates the controls, making it easy to find the right button when playing in half-lit rooms.

For the musically inclined, the GT Deluxe comes with switchable 20-watt Studio and 40-watt Stage outputs, and houses a 12” Celestion Alnico Cream speaker on the inside. Intuitive controls on the top let you calibrate the guitar’s sound, controlling your regular Bass/Mid/Treble/Reverb, as well as more unique controls like Pre-Gain and Headroom that give the musician a hands-on tube-amp tone-sculpting experience. The GT Deluxe can even be used as a pedalboard platform by hooking in effects pedals through the inputs/outputs on the back, and a Mic Out that lets you output your guitar’s sound to a DAW for recording, mastering, or sampling!

Designer: Joeri Claeys for Da Capo

This lighter’s unique shape is actually inspired by the flame it creates!

It’s quite easy to figure out where the ‘Tiny Flame’ lighter takes its visual inspiration from! Designed to resemble the very thing it creates, the Tiny Flame lighter’s teardrop shape and metallic gold finish is instantly memorable and eye-catching! I’m refraining from making a Flame-ception joke, so bear with me here.

The Tiny Flame lighter isn’t the kind you’d carry in your pocket. Instead, it’s a product fit for sitting on your desk or mantelpiece. Its bottom-heavy shape makes it stable enough to constantly stand upright, and its matte-versus-polished finish has a beautiful way of catching reflections and making it shine. When you want to use it, the lighter’s curved surface fits naturally into the palm of your hand. A parting line separates the matte-finish bottom half and the polished upper half, and a simple push with your thumb causes the upper cap to tip backward, triggering the flame. Similarly, pushing the cap back in place extinguishes the flame too. Tip the lighter over and it reveals its adjusting ring that lets you control the flame intensity, as well as a refill point for refueling the lighter when the fluid within it runs out.

The lighter, although conceptual from the looks of it, comes in three colors – gold, silver, and a matte-black rose-gold combo. I personally love the idea of the upper part of the lighter sporting a polished finish while the lower part comes with a sandblasted matte finish. Apart from acting as a visual separator between the upper and lower halves, it also visually represents the flame, which can sometimes have a different colored tip and base. Apart from that, it has a simple yet commanding appearance that manages to look eye-catching while still remaining beautifully minimal. That’s pretty lit, if you ask me!

Designer: LYN (Youngnam Lee)