Tag Archives: minimal

If Apple Arcade had its own gaming controller, I’d want it to look as minimal as this

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Sleek, with minimal details, and controls that are as baffling as the AppleTV Remote yet equally appealing. This may be Designer Hannes Geipel’s version of a Microsoft Surface Gaming Controller, but it definitely has a very strong Apple-esque vibe to it.

The Surface Gaming Controller concept by Hannes Geipel boasts of a brilliantly simple form. With absolutely no frills, textures, accents, or color-separation, the Surface Gaming Controller has a clean look to it that is a major contrast to Microsoft’s own Xbox controller. The Surface Gaming Controller comes with a soft, satin finish, and sports two rather slick looking joypads with a metallic ring around them. The joypads lie perfectly in reach of your thumb, while two large X signs sit where you’d expect the D-pad and the XYAB buttons.

However, instead of the buttons, the controller opts for flaps, using the X-shaped cutouts to create triangular plastic flaps that bend inward when pressed. The flaps give a natural spring-like action, providing just the right amount of resistance as you press it… although whether this detail is better than your average button from a tactile standpoint is something that’s yet to be determined. On the aesthetic front, the X-shaped cutouts definitely set the controller apart visually! There are even a pair of triggers on the upper corners of the controller, although they sit flush against the surface and recess inwards when pressed.

All the details on the Surface Gaming Controller focus more on form than on function, resulting in a device that definitely looks good. I’d arguably compare this to the AppleTV Remote, which most consumers will agree is more visually pleasing than functionally useful. Then again, the Surface Game Controller is just a concept. It echoes the clean, no-nonsense design of Microsoft’s Surface Book and Surface Pro, comes with minimal backlighting for night-time gaming, and if you look carefully, you’ll even spot the Microsoft logo on the back!

Designer: Hannes Geipel

Tiny home setups that prove why micro-living will be the next big trend: Part 5

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Tiny homes are all the craze now, but they’re not simply a trend, it seems like they are here to stay. Sustainability and minimal and cleaner ways of living have never been more imperative. With the COVID-19 pandemic shaking the world up, everyone is now focused on making more conscious and smarter decisions. Could tiny homes be the space-saving and sustainable living solution that we all need? I do think so!

W2 Architecture’s revolutionary trailer design, Romotow, the name an amalgamation of ‘room to move’ contains all the usual RV features but with an innovative 90-degree twist. With the press of a simple electric button, it swivels open, rotating at 90 degrees, to reveal an open synthetic teak deck, and 70% more living space.

Smaller Architects built this tiny home in Seoul, Korea. This four-story tall vertical tiny home is called ‘Seroro’ which literally means ‘vertically’. The rooms have been stacked one on top of the other, with the first floor comprising of the living room and the common washroom. The ground floor functions as a parking lot, whereas the second floor houses the kitchen and the dining area, and the third floor includes the bedroom and a private washroom. Lastly, a dressing room with a bathtub is situated on the fourth floor. Quaint, compact, and spacious at the same time, don’t you think?

Design Studio Andrés and José designed a mobile tiny house that aims to provide shelter to homeless people. Deemed as ‘an urban domestic object’ by the designers themselves, ‘Rodar’ could be a major source of relief to homeless people, providing them with a simple, minimal yet comfortable living space. Its structure and build are very similar to the ambulances found in many Latin American countries. The geometric, box-like compact home does look quite intriguing to me!

Room+ Design & Build renovated an old tiny house in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Featuring translucent glass blocks, the two-story home consists of a shop on the ground floor, and a minimal living space with two bedrooms on the upper floors. The glass facade allows natural light to continuously stream into the home, creating an open and relaxed space.

Fernando Mastrangelo designed a tiny house from salt, sand, and powdered glass in Times Square. Quite literally named ‘Tiny House’, the home is built from discarded and then recycled materials such as plastic and glass. The cave-like structure showcases an ombre effect on its outer facade, owing to the use of recycled plastic. Whereas glass was used to build the walls.

Dunkin’ Donuts and New Frontier Tiny Homes build a mobile tiny home that literally runs on discarded Dunkin’ Donuts coffee grounds! The transportable home is powered by a biofuel made up of 80 percent coffee oil extracted from 65,000 pounds of discarded coffee grounds. The home includes a cedar porch, a living room, multifunctional furniture, a fully functional kitchen, a comfy bunk bed, and beautiful wooden floors.

While Vancouver has quickly become one of the most expensive cities to live in, it is not densely populated and there are a lot of vacant spaces that can be put to better use – Shifting Nests sustainable tiny homes is that use! This project wants to transform empty parking lots into a community with gardens and low-cost homes. “The ‘nests’ are a prefabricated housing solution consisting of plywood, metal cladding, and corrugated polycarbonate on a series of simple frames.

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.

One of my favorite things about tiny homes is the loft-style beds because they give you a little private cozy corner and that is exactly how the bedroom in Natura is set up. It has a multifunctional king-sized bed with plenty of storage under the frame. The bedroom also has a single large window that makes it more spacious and allows for a lot of natural light to flood your top floor. The space optimization goes beyond the bedroom, there are many built-in spaces for you to put the things you own like under the stairs as well as in the walls!

The Pacific Harbor is a tiny house built on a 30’x8.5’ triple axel Iron Eagle trailer – compact, convenient, and classy. The interiors are kept light and breezy to manifest the feeling of spaciousness. The tiny home includes a downstairs flex area that can be turned into a bedroom or home office, a sleeping loft in the back, and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen.

A minimal smartwatch that actually helps you unplug from phone notifications!

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Imagine this. You are working at your desk, when in a brief lull of productivity, you wonder, What time is it? You press a button on your phone – just to check the time, you swear – and you notice a few notifications as well: a breaking news headline, a text from a friend, a new follower on Instagram, etc. Almost reflexively, you unlock your phone. Just five minutes, you tell yourself. I’ll skim through these alerts and get back to work. Of course, in my case, I blink, and those five minutes have turned into twenty.

Scenario two: you are out for a relaxing, socially-distant hike. The fresh air and natural sunlight are exactly what you need at this moment – a break from your tech-heavy life. What time is it? You wonder. You click your lock screen – just to check, you swear – but then curiosity takes over. This hiking trail is too quiet – boring, to be honest. You want a brief distraction from this peaceful environment…which is how you end up online.

Our attachment to our phones is a difficult one to break. Even though I can limit my screentime by restricting data usage on certain apps, blocking notifications, or setting my phone to Do Not Disturb, these self-imposed measures don’t always work. They don’t stop me from opening social media or playing Candy Crush.

A few weeks ago, I covered a wifi-router concept that gave users the option to disconnect from the internet. In a similar vein, the TIME OFF! watch gives you the ability to mute your smartphone notifications. How does it work? Well, the process is pretty straight-forward. Similar to many smartwatches and Fitbits, the TIME OFF! has a companion app where you can control all the settings. With the app, you can choose which apps and alarms to mute during your “time off” mode. Once you save those settings, you can, at any point, silence those alerts by pressing the red button on your TIME OFF! watch. You don’t even have to pick up your phone.

My favorite aspect of the watch is its simple design. Yanko has featured plenty of minimalistic concepts, but this one is the most minimal watch that I’ve seen. The watch consists of a solid-colored band and a face with a small LED sliver that displays the time. The screen doesn’t even fill the entire watch surface! I love this design choice because it reinforces the product’s mission: to eliminate distractions. The TIME OFF! wants you to be present in your environment, to forget about your email inbox, the news, and the passage of time.

The product uses a textile strap that is also quite versatile. You can wear the TIME OFF! as a watch – and switch out the band for a more fashionable one – but you can also tie it on your belt loop or a bag strap. It’s a simple idea, but one that also contributes to the product’s mission: to remove all the little things that may tempt you to check your phone. Don’t worry about the time, this watch seems to say. It’ll still be here, on your bag if you need it, but you should enjoy this break from the digital world.

Designer: Rudolph Schelling Webermann

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This eccentric looking armchair interprets furniture as a postmodern art-piece!

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The Varier Ekstrem was built to evoke a reaction. Now it doesn’t matter what reaction it is as long as it’s extreme (as the chair’s name suggests), but I’m guessing designer Terje Ekstrøm is going for a combination of shock-value and absolute delight, because as eccentric as the Ekstrem armchair looks, it surely looks hypnotic too!

The Ekstrem comes with an incredibly bold-looking silhouette, thanks to its pipe-shaped design. The chair distills the seating experience to its most basic form, and then exaggerates it with thick cushioned columns that curve and intersect to create a seat that’s still comfortable to sit on. The armchair comes with a backrest and a seat, each created by four pipe-columns merging together. The pipes then branch out, becoming either the armrests, or the legs of the chair, creating something that’s absurd to look at, but something you’ll undeniably want to sit on!

Each chair comes with an internal stainless steel frame, covered with PU foam, giving the chair its soft appeal. The foam members are individually upholstered with a bespoke woven woolen fabric, giving it breathability along with elasticity that allows the fabric weave to naturally stretch when you sit on it. The chair comes in six Pantone color variants, ranging from the classic black and light Gray Violet, to more vibrant options like Shaded Spruce, Port (maroon), Sulphur (yellow), and Bridge Orange.

Designer: Terje Ekstrøm for Varier

Varier Ekstrem Extrem Slangenstoel

The MINUS calculator explores extreme minimalism without sacrificing functionality

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How much can you take away from something before you’ve taken away too much? The MINUS Calculator is a great example of a no-frills design that’s so incredibly simplistic, it seems like a monolithic slab of plastic, but it’s a sleek, minimal-yet-fully-functional calculator.

Making a product better isn’t always an additive process, it’s sometimes also subtractive. The MINUS calculator doesn’t come with buttons, color-coded keys, or even a screen for that matter. Everything manifests within the slick, monotone block that is the MINUS. The numbers are bas-relief molded into the calculator’s front panel, and a powerful LED screen shines through the panel’s translucent plastic. The only break in the calculator’s surface is in the top left corner, where the “=” button sits. The MINUS calculator also comes with a battery gauge built into its side, and a proprietary magnetic contact-pin charging port at its base that lets you snap the charger to it whenever it’s low on juice.

Designer: Telekes Design

The Sunlight Clock aims to de-stress you by redefining the passage of time

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The Sunlight Clock will make you feel like you are watching the sunset instead of making you want to rush. And it comes with a cube that lets you catch the sunlight and use it later! Designer Linda set out to challenge the perception of time and she did that by letting you create your own timeline with the cube.

The sunlight clock was designed to challenge the general emotion a clock radiates – the urgency of time fleeting is replaced by a calm feeling of just watching the light fade gently. This clock is meant to be in spaces where you are at rest, where you can let time pass without having to do anything about it. The minimal design only has numbers and lets sunlight dictate what angle it forms, much like the sundial which is one of the first clocks used by humans. The designer also has a small concrete cube with a slit for the light that you can use to place on surfaces that tells you about the passage of time. Linda shares the DIY design to help you create your own concrete mold. Once your concrete box is set and dry, all you have to do is set up the internal circuit and your personal time-free timeline monitor is ready to use. You can create your own timeline to meditate, read, listen to music as the ray of sunlight moves around. So if you don’t have a place with a lot of natural light, the cube will make up for it!

The cube lets you catch the sunlight which otherwise disappears into the wall thanks to the fitted circuit inside that mimics the same behavior. So you can have your own beam of light that helps you wind down and makes you cherish the passing time!

Designer: Linda B

The Concrete box DIY process

A Japanese charm redesigned to keep you healthy by syncing with the earth!

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Omamori (お守り) are traditional good luck charms in Japanese culture that protect the wearer of the charm. The Japanese word “mamori” (守り) means protection, while prefix “o” gives the word an external movent connotation, transforming it to “your protection” and there are Omamoris for every area of life: love, health, luck, trips, success, protection. The concept of Kenkō is a futuristic take on the traditional Omamori, it does not cure illnesses or ward off evil spirits but it helps you stay healthy by being in sync with the earth’s electromagnetic frequencies. It is ergonomic, travel-friendly and minimal while still being a powerful force.

The earth is constantly emitting 7,83 Hz (also known as the earth’s breath, who knew that?!) along its surface which is believed to allow living beings to regulate their physiological functions. Scientific studies show that the earth’s natural magnetic fields have a positive influence on our brains. With the rapid development of electronic communication technologies, our bodies are getting confused between the natural and artificial frequencies which are dwindling our inherent ability to be in sync with nature. This concept device is aimed at increasing focus, coordinated neural activities, improve sleep and circadian rhythms, stabilize blood pressure and stimulate osteoblasts. Kenkō will be created to produce a 7,83Hz signal, reproducing the natural frequency using technology which will help human bodies re-establish their intrinsic relationship with being healthy naturally. It will have an LED light strip that glows when you switch on the device. Electrosmog caused by Wi-Fi and smartphone frequencies can no longer disturb the sync between the natural rhythm and your brain with Kenkō’s 1.5m protection radius around you. It is also designed to be pocket-sized so you can carry it everywhere like the traditional Omamori is meant to be but with a sleek touch of tech!

Designer: Daniele Peruzzo

Tiny homes made of shipping containers for the millennial home owners

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Tiny homes are a fast-growing trench in the architectural world and why wouldn’t they be? The upcoming consumer is the millennial generation and tiny homes are perfect given the skyrocketing prices for real estate and avocados. Handcrafted Movement is a company that is here to bridge that gap between homes and budgets, in their words they have been created to create – what better motto when you build beautiful spaces right?

One of their projects that I absolutely loved was the Pacific Harbor model. The details truly show the team’s wanderlust and craftsmanship. It is built on a 30’x8.5’ triple axel Iron Eagle trailer – compact, convenient and classy. The interiors are kept light and breezy to manifest the feeling of spaciousness. The tiny home includes a downstairs flex area that can be turned into a bedroom or home office, a sleeping loft in the back, stainless steel appliances in the kitchen, and a Mini-Split System for air conditioning and heating. The exterior features Board & Batt, black-framed windows, cedar accents, a cedar post & deck system.

The house has lots of natural sunlight given the wide windows and a charming little table for sharing food on. The colors perfectly compliment the structure and make is inviting. It is a perfect set up for one or two people with enough space while saving space. Tiny houses always amaze me because they showcase the maximum optimization of every corner without ever giving you the feeling of “small” – in fact, they always make the heart feel bigger because of how thoughtfully they are made.

Designer: Handcrafted Movement

Modular headphones that mix your sound to match your space

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Imagine having a sound system so versatile that you can actually play Lego with it! DE-MO, which stands for Detachable and Modular, is exactly that – an ecosystem of replaceable speakers, cables and headband accessories that you can use to create an audio experience based on your needs. It has a minimal aesthetic and a sleek build so you’ll never look like Tarzan with the cords – DE-MO is built for the minimal millennial.

DE-MO adapts to your needs so instead of having to keep a track of different headphones and cables for different situations, it offers a single set that can be expanded over time. It even gives you the option of adding a microphone and volume control clip – now you can finally go on that run and not be compelled to answer any phone calls!

This modular audio system was made keeping YOU in mind – there is something for everyone who uses DE-MO. If you are working out and want your headphones to be lighter, just strip away some accessories and you’re good to go. If you’re at the office and want to focus, but make sure you hear your boss call out to you – there is a set up for that too. By the riverside and enjoying a quiet moment for yourself? You can have a completely immersive experience with your favorite songs and savor that me-time with DE-MO. Now you have a playlist for every mood and a headset for every playlist!

Designer: Hans van Sinderen

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The Light Phone 2 wants to save our world from a Black Mirror future

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After raising a staggering $3.5 million dollars on Indiegogo to fund its production, the Light Phone 2 is here to fight the good fight against bad tech. There isn’t any conclusive proof that being incredibly digitally connected makes humans happier in any way. The technology that was designed to serve us is now in control of us, and like any uncontrollable addiction, the Light Phone’s remedy is simple… detoxify yourself.

Designed to promote communication in a way that is respectful to humans, the Light Phone 2 is a simple, minimal device that gives you the tools you need to stay in touch with the people you truly care about. Enabling you to call and text through an interface that feels familiar and minimal at the same time, the Light Phone 2 doesn’t consume you with notifications from apps, instant social gratification, or worrisome trolls who just want to make others feel bad about themselves. The phone comes with a black and white e-ink touchscreen interface that’s easy to use and comfortable on the eyes and mind. It doesn’t have a camera, or access to social media, mails, or endless news feeds (basically it removes the possibility of information overload), but it retains the important stuff, like a music player, a calendar, calculator, notepad, as well as complete essentials like a map service and a taxi-hailing service… giving you a phone that’s quite literally good for your wellbeing. It promotes a healthier happier life while giving you the tools you need to go about your day, and the absence of an app-market means nobody can ever track your information!

Designer: Light