Tag Archives: modular electronics

The Space Age Never Left, RETROCORE Just Made It Official

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Every few years, design circles get swept up in nostalgia for a very specific era: the 1960s vision of the future. The curved furniture, the orbital shapes, the warm glow of a lamp that feels both alien and oddly cozy. We keep returning to it because, as futures go, it was a beautiful one to imagine, full of optimism and clean lines and a belief that living beautifully was something everyone deserved.

RETROCORE, the latest project from the team behind WOLOLOW, understands that pull completely. Designed by Arthur Koshatahyan and Kostya Trunov, it’s a modular wall and ceiling lighting system that borrows the visual language of Space Age design and reframes it as something you can actually build into your home, your studio, or anywhere light and personality intersect.

Designers: Arthur Koshatahyan and Kostya Trunov

The concept is deceptively simple. At its core, RETROCORE is made up of individual light panels that combine into custom configurations, scaling up from a single accent piece to a full architectural installation. Two panel types do the heavy lifting: MONO, which features a single illuminated aperture, and QUATRO, which carries four within the same square format. Snap them together in different arrangements and you’re essentially composing with light, the way someone might arrange art on a wall or tiles across a floor. The configurations can stay small and subtle or grow into something that commands the room entirely.

That modularity is the whole point, and it’s where RETROCORE separates itself from the usual retro-inspired lighting piece that looks great in a showroom and then sits stubbornly in one corner forever. Koshatahyan and Trunov describe it as “a new way to bring Space Age design into modern interiors, not only as a lamp, but as a modular building block of light.” And that framing matters. It positions RETROCORE not as decor, but as infrastructure, something that can grow, change, and adapt alongside the spaces it inhabits.

The backstory is worth knowing. WOLOLOW began as a UFO-shaped night light, a miniature riff on the iconic Futuro House, that tiny flying-saucer dwelling designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in the late 1960s. That first product found an audience, went through the full crowdfunding process, and the lessons from building, manufacturing, and shipping a physical design object directly shaped what came next. RETROCORE isn’t a pivot so much as an evolution, a deeper commitment to the same aesthetic universe but with far more ambition built in.

One quietly clever detail: the white version of the panels can be repainted after installation. That means the lighting can blend seamlessly into a surface, disappearing into the ceiling or wall and leaving only the glowing apertures visible, or it can be deliberately contrasted against a painted background. It’s a small thing, but it shows the kind of considered thinking that separates a product designed to be sold from one designed to be lived with over time.

Retro-futurism as an aesthetic tends to get treated as a costume. You slap some Jetsons curves on a lamp, call it Space Age, and move on. RETROCORE doesn’t quite fall into that trap. The modular logic behind it feels genuinely contemporary, even as the visual references are firmly rooted in mid-century optimism. It’s the difference between wearing a vintage look and actually understanding why it worked in the first place, and why it still does.

Whether you install one panel as a quiet nod to the era or map out an entire ceiling composition, RETROCORE offers what a lot of statement lighting simply can’t: the ability to keep editing. Your room changes, your taste shifts, your wall gets repainted, and the system accommodates all of it without you having to start over.

For a design moment that often prizes the singular, precious object, there’s real appeal in something built to be rearranged. RETROCORE is currently on Kickstarter, and if it delivers on what the images promise, it could work just as well in a minimalist apartment as it does in a maximalist creative studio. That flexibility, more than the retro aesthetics, is the actual sell.

The post The Space Age Never Left, RETROCORE Just Made It Official first appeared on Yanko Design.

Nintendo Switch-inspired DJ Console Splits Into Two So You Can Deejay With A Friend

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It was pretty game-changing back in 2015 when Nintendo dropped the Switch, ushering in a wave of 2-player gaming on the same console. Two joy-cons, one console, mano-a-mano gaming. You didn’t need an extra controller – Nintendo built right one into the Switch. Designer Eunjun Jang wants to bring that same modular multiplayer culture to deejaying… because it’s an activity that is conducive to socializing.

Nobody plays music alone, the act of deejaying is inherently social. Look at the Boiler Room sets, where the deejay is surrounded by sometimes a hundred or more people, absorbing the energy emanating from the console and the speakers. The ‘Twin’ DJ Console just turns that emotionally social activity into a physically social one. Two player decks, one mixer in the middle, quite like a Nintendo Switch but for music. The units snap together to create a single 2-player console, but split them apart and they’re like a mano-a-mano setup for two deejays trying to collab in real-time.

Designer: Eunjun Jang

The Twin has this clean-yet-fun design, sort of like if Teenage Engineering met Braun. The console strays away from extra fluff, giving each player just a tiny screen that lets them monitor effects and whatnot. The music itself plays from smartphones which pair with each of the player units. Run the Twin app and place each phone above the player and you sort of see how the entire setup looks like a Pioneer XDJ or something. The controls are simplified, and the entire device is nearly 60-70% smaller than your average DJ console. This makes the Twin perfect for using on the go, in your bedroom, or at a café.

The design is truly fascinating, although it begs for some color and vibrancy. You’ve got the mixer front and center, with EQ knobs, a cue button for each deck, channel faders, and a crossfader that lets you swap between left and right decks, so you’re shifting between songs. On the player themselves, you’ve got a tempo key to let you manually sync songs, a cue key that lets you trigger a particular part of a song, and a play-pause key that form the most crucial set of controls. There are 4 extra keys on the top corner, along with a shift key, and while most DJ consoles have a disc that you spin to rewind/forward or scratch music, the Twin ditches that for an elegant jog-wheel on the side. It’s cute, and it gets the job done, although seasoned deejays may have their own hot-takes.

The modularity is what sets the Twin apart. You can pull the individual parts together and sit across each other, mixing music from your phones. Why build a Spotify playlist when you can literally play a deejay set in your jammies? It feels much more involved, allowing friends to bond and jam together in a way that Spotify or Apple Music just won’t let you.

Pogo pins allow you to snap the elements together or pull them apart, quite like the Nintendo Switch. Ultimately, that’s exactly the vibe Eunjung was going for. Games are nice, but music is just *chef’s kiss*. Each player gets their own dedicated deck, but you might end up fighting for the mixer if you’re not careful! You want to vibe together like Disclosure, not call it quits like Daft Punk!

That said, the Twin still feels like just a toy right now. It lacks the extra features that most professional DJs would really need. Proper effects, looping, the ability to add separate vocal channels, or even shift pitch. Then again, most amateur-level DJ kits stick to the basics, allowing for more simple techniques so that people can master those before moving onto larger tasks. Although, that’s where Twin’s modularity does come in handy. Imagine if Eunjung just designed a set of Pro-grade players that you could snap to your mixer, turning your entry-level DJ set into something enough to sustain a bloc party!

The post Nintendo Switch-inspired DJ Console Splits Into Two So You Can Deejay With A Friend first appeared on Yanko Design.