What's better than child slavery? Child slavery for art!

Just kidding. While designer Lucas Maassen employs child labor to create his furniture/artwork, it's completely legal. The best part? Selling the furniture pieces for up to $3,500. Who knew that employing your kids could be so profitable?

Dutch child labor laws let the boys work up to 3 hours a week. So, each Tuesday, instead of watching TV or playing with their toys like all those lazy kids, they schlep into Maassen & Sons and get to work painting dad’s furniture (assorted wooden chairs and cabinets and mirrors) in cheery colors for 1 Euro a pop.

It might sound like a gimmick--a devilishly cute way to sell a few chairs in a crap economy--except that for the Maassen family, the project has served a deeper purpose: It has helped the boys develop an enviable work ethic. “They take the work very seriously,” Maassen tells Co.Design. They even signed employee contracts, which stipulate things like when the work day starts (3 p.m.), how long of a break they’re allowed (15 minutes), and how many vacation days they’re entitled to (12, depending on how long they’ve been employed).

“They love doing it,” Maassen says. “They think it’s great to work in the family business.”

$3,500?! Where are my paint buckets and my kids? Link

Sure, you may not realize it when they’re in battle, but AT-AT’s are actually the ultimate party mobile. That’s why having one as your liquor cabinet makes so much sense.

Link Via BuzzFeed

Dropping a cement filled mannequin on a perforated metal trapezoid is a really strange way of creating a chair, and it looks as you would expect it would-crumpled and uncomfortable. But hey, you can’t blame designer Ezri Tarazi for trying to come up with something new in the world of furniture design. If only he could find a more practical use for a cement-filled mannequin, say as a wrecking ball or to weigh down a snitch when he drops them in the ocean.

Link –via DesignTAXI

Dodd’s Furniture is going where no furniture store has gone before. Where that is, I don’t know. Set your savings for stunning! -via The Daily What Geeks

Model builder msmuse101 and her father threw their skills together and produced this awesome TARDIS dvd shelving unit, which looks so good they should mass produce them and sell them in stores.

The only problem with this TARDIS? It’s way smaller inside than it looks on the outside, like it was made in an alternate reality.

Link –via GeeksAreSexy

The Pin Pres is a storage system that lets a child change the positions of sliding pins to create custom shelving arrangements. My kids could have hours of fun with this. And when no one is looking, I could, too!

Link -via My Modern Met | Design Studio’s Website

Here’s a nifty little gallery of items from Tokyo Design Week 2011, including the glasses shown above, which were made out of sugar crystals which were formed naturally then reproduced in plastic via 3d printer.

Art and innovation collide in these interesting items, and some may even make their way into a store near you. Others, like the tusk inspired headgear or the strange knit yellow suit with duck hat, probably won’t make it out of Japan. Thank your lucky stars!

Link

Now where did I put that sock? This clever table and chairs and drawers combo furniture called T@tris by Pedro Machado is inspired by a certain madly addictive videogame of the 80s.

Link - via Freshome

What do you do with a spare World War II biplane engine? Make it into a functional art like this coffee table:

Currently on display at Decoratum Gallery in London, the Cylinder Radial Engine Table is made from a US Army Boeing-Stearman PT-13 engine acquired from the Canadian Museum of Flight, Langley, British Columbia. Constructed between 1936 and 1938, the innovative piece features a simple clear glass top so you can see through to the complex engine workings below.

Link | More at Decoratum

In this case, chocolate isn’t just the name of the color, but the name of the frosting flavor. That’s right, it’s a delicious chocolate-covered couch made by Leandro Erlich.

Link Via CraftZine

Nick McBride of Juniata College sent in pictures of some fun his department had with leftover Macintosh computer boxes. They made furniture out of them!

The couch that we put together can hold 2 or 3 people, has built in
cup holders, and would retail for $12,000 (if you purchased the Macs
to make it). We kept all the internal foam pieces to further reinforce
the sitting areas.

The easy chair was built the same way.

-Thanks, Nick!

Wouldn’t it be neat if you took a drawer from each piece of furniture your kid had as they grew up and made one big piece of furniture out of it?

Entwurf-Direkt is a cooperative store in Hamburg, Germany that functions as an art space and workshop all in one. It also serves to educate anyone who would like to do more with the furniture they have, thus doing their bit to help the environment. Their most recent project is the 1,000 Orphan Drawers which takes unused mismatched dresser drawers and outfits them with a new dresser in a unique shape. The design is to help encourage people to reuse what’s available to them in a out-of-the-dresser sort of way. Link -via Craftzine

The latest do-it-yourself project from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories is this footstool made in the shape of a 555 timer chip. It’s a heavy-duty design, made from plywood, glue, and paint. Link -via Laughing Squid

Flop down on this chair the wrong way and you just might bounce right off. The 336-hour project by artist Preston Moeller required 65,000 rubber bands to create. “It does bounce,” he says. This isn’t the only time Moeller has worked in a rather sproingy medium, though – he has also made furniture out of trampolines.

Link via Laughing Squid
Photo by Jennifer Richey and Jesse Helms

Love typography? In need of some furnishings for your house that are slightly more advanced than that IKEA armchair you shelled out for in college? Look no further than Tabisso’s typographic lounge furniture. It comes in letters A-Z and numbers 0-9, so you can say whatever you want (provided you have the living space, anyway. We don’t recommend, say, “existentialism” for a studio apartment). You can even get coordinating punctuation-shaped lamps to really accent your furniture statement.

Link via the Des Moines Egotist

IKEA is the world’s largest furniture store. In fact, the company is so big, it is estimated that around 10% of all Europeans alive today were conceived on an IKEA bed. Despite its success though, the company still has quite a few dark secrets, as well as a number of interesting trivia bits. Whether you love the flat-pack manufacturer or hate it, these 10 facts about the company are certain to spark your interest in the things that happen behind the scenes of IKEA.

Image via Calvin Teo [Wikipedia]

1. The Store Was Created By A Nazi Sympathizer. Founder Ingvar Kamprad founded IKEA in 1943. He was only seventeen at the time. At the same time, he was also directly involved with fund-raising and recruitment for the New Swedish Movement, a pro-fascist, anti-Semitist group that emphasized Swedish Nationalism. When the matter came out in 1994, Kamprad claimed it was the biggest mistake of his life. He apologized for his involvement with the group and wrote a letter to every Jewish employee on his staff to personally apologize for his actions. Even so, the issue caused a minor controversy when IKEA opened its first store in Israel. In the end, the country seemed to forgive him and IKEA is now one of only a handful of companies to have stores in both Israel and other Muslim Middle Eastern countries.



Image via yassan-yukky [Flickr]

2. It Is Technically A Charity. If Nazism wasn’t bad enough, IKEA is also has one of the most elaborate tax evasion schemes of any company that still manages to operate within the law. IKEA is owned by INGKA Holding B.V., a Dutch corporation that is controlled by a non-profit Dutch foundation known as the Stichting Ingka Foundation, which was founded by Kamprad in 1982. This Foundation is headed by a five-person committee that includes Kamprad, his wife, and his attorney. IKEA’s intellectual property is owned by Inter IKEA Systems, which is owned, indirectly, by the Inerogo Foundation, which is also controlled by Kamprad and his family. IKEA has to pay 3% of its profits to the foundation to license its own trademarks. Because IKEA is owned by charities, none of its profits are taxed, making the Ingka Foundation the largest charity in the world, with a net worth of $36 billion. Of course, the charity isn’t nearly as generous as most (being as how it’s mostly just a tax evasion strategy), so it only gave away $65 million in 2010. To put that in perspective, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has a net worth of $33 billion and they give away around $1.5 billion per year. The whole scheme is pretty complex, so if you want to read more about it, I recommend checking out this great Mental Floss article on the issue.
3. The Name Is Actually An Acronym. While most people assume IKEA is just a Swedish word or a nonsense word like Kodak, it is actually an acronym with close ties to Ingvar Kamprad’s heart. The letters stand for his initials, the initial for the farm he grew up in, Elmtaryd, and the town the farm was located in, Agunnaryd.



Image via DrJohnBullas [Flickr]

4. They Have A Very Specific Way Of Naming Products. Because Kamprad is dyslexic, he found it extremely difficult to manage an inventory that was made up of product codes, so he instead decided to name everything with words instead. I always thought that the products names were all Swedish words describing the objects, but as it turns out, that only applies to a handful of kitchen items. For the most part, all items are named according to a system developed by IKEA where each type of item carries a different name origin. For example, dining tables and chairs generally are named after places in Finland. Carpets are named after places in Denmark. For more examples, check out this article in The Guardian.
5. They Also Sell Houses. Ready to buy a new home? If you live in Scandinavia or the UK, don’t head to a real estate agent, head to IKEA and grab a flat-pack house for a fraction of the cost. The BoKlok houses were originally released in Sweden in 1996, and have since expanded to IKEA stores across Northern Europe.
6. Their Catalog Is More Popular Than The Bible. Ok, maybe that’s a little misleading, but every year, there are almost three times more copies of the catalog printed than the bible. They started printing the catalog in 1951 and it has since taken on a life of its own, consuming a full 70% of the companies marketing budget every year and developing a devoted fan base of people who analyze the images looking for obscure books in the bookshelves, Mickey Mouse references and cats hiding in the fake households. There are now 55 editions printed in 27 languages every year.
7. You Can Buy Their Merchandise For Your Virtual Family. If you’re running out of space in your home for all the great IKEA stuff you want, maybe you should consider shopping for your virtual home instead. Since 2008, players of The Sims 2 have had the chance to purchase the IKEA Home Stuff pack and deck out their character’s houses with the décor.



Image via thekellyscope [Flickr]

8. The Store Really Is A Big Deal. Most of you have probably become used to IKEA and no longer consider the store all that special, but for many people, the chance to shop in the Swedish furniture store is an exciting occasion –particularly when they are offering $150 gift certificates to the first people who shop there. This exact promotion actually lead to the trampling deaths of three people when the store opened in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 2004.
9. It Can Be A Great Way For Parents To Get A Break. Many stores offer free daycare centers with playgrounds and beepers that can be used to contact the parent if the child needs mommy or daddy before they finish shopping. Stressed out parents can then easily enjoy a nice meal, a nap in one of the bedroom displays or, you know, an actual shopping trip knowing their little ones are safe and secure within the same building.
10. They Were The First Company To Feature A Gay Relationship In a Commercial. While the commercial only ran once in 1994, it was still a big deal for such a major company to release an ad with a homosexual couple. Since then, the company had ran a number of ads targeting the gay community, including one of the first ads to feature a transgender person.

Do you like the company or hate it? More to the point, have you changed your opinion after learning about Kamprad’s dirty secrets or about their progressive ads targeted to homosexuals?

Sources: Wikipedia and Mental Floss

Hammocks are great and all, but we’ve found something way better. Designers Daniel Pouzet and Fred Frety built cozy hive-like pods out of sturdy DeDon fiber. You can hang from a tree (even over water, if you’re so inclined) or just sit out in your yard — it sure beats a lounge chair.

Link -via Gear Patrol

The chair is excited to see its owner in this Brazilian ad for a furniture design center. As much as I laugh at my dog, I laughed at this even more. -via Laughing Squid

Some people make furnitures out of scraps of wood, but Roman Yerokhin’s family made theirs from really tiny scraps of wood, namely matchsticks:

… since matchsticks were one of the few abundant resources in the USSR, Roman Yerokhin’s family chose it as a medium to give their home a unique makeover. While other people threw away the matchsticks after lighting the stove, they saved them for the sake of art, and even lit up entire boxes of matches when they ran out of materials. Then his mother would glue the matchsticks on small pieces of cardboard to ensure the squares in the pattern were all the same size. Then the pieces were attached to the otherwise bland furniture and covered with a layer of varnish.

Link

Stacy Conradt found a houseful of jaw-dropping furniture designs for children, from cute and fun to outlandishly opulent. This whimsical wardrobe is from Japanese designer Hiromatsu. See the entire collection at NeatoBambino. Link

American designer Mattias Pliessnig built this curvy custom bench out of thin sheets of oak:

pliessnig recently completed ‘amada’, a design for a private client who wanted a large bench flowing through his living space. the piece was designed to direct the sitter to face multiple directions. the seating unit is made entirely of air-dried responsibly harvested white oak that has been steam bent to create the curvaceous form of the bench.

Link via Dude Craft | Designer’s Website | Photo: Gene Young/Smithsonian

This Friday’s Museum of Possibilities addresses furniture that can be rotated, upended or turned upside down to reveal a distinctly different function. Over a span of nearly 30 years, this trivial and relatively unimportant design challenge has intrigued me. It is a persistent idée fixe for me. It would be dishonest to suggest that such furniture would be indispensable, useful or necessary for a small home or office. Frankly, it is no more than an intriguing design puzzle.

I have a friend, Dirk Dieter, who lives in a single-family home on a sliver of land not much wider than the grass strip that parallels some sidewalks. His home, a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean south of San Francisco, occupies literally 250 sq. ft. He could use one of these designs, perhaps!

Of course one of the several weaknesses of these ideas is that when one function is in use, the other is unavailable. But I challenge my dear Neatorama readers to think up your own flip-over, multiple-use furniture. It is lots of fun to imagine them!

Visit Steven M. Johnson at his website.

Here’s something your friends will all remember -propping their tired feet up on an ice cream cookie at your home! This ottoman made of wood, canvas, velvet, and foam is available now from Jellio. Link

This Friday’s Museum of Possibilities employs several themes that are found in many of my pseudo-inventions: Hiding, duplicity, pretending and concealing. Today’s ideas are offered as solutions to the problem of storing and using exercise equipment in a small home or apartment. Some of these concepts will seem coy and cute, but at the same time odd. Who in their right mind jumps on a trampoline inside a fake China closet in the dark, while listening to headphones? Who would not worry that a fine living room lounge chair that contained a hidden rowing machine might eventually become grimy with sweat?
Yet I can imagine some – though perhaps few – situations in which such concealed exercise equipment might be just what is needed!

Visit Steven M. Johnson at his website.

The table, named “Fast Food”, reached a top speed of 130mph and averaged 113.8mph, comfortably eclipsing the 92mph set by a sofa in 2007.

Mr Watkins expects to become the official world record holder for the fastest piece of furniture when his time is accepted by Guinness.

A 1994 Reliant Scimitar Sabre underneath the table, boosted by a nitrous oxide kit, provides the thrust for the makeshift vehicle.

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: REX

I know some people who would rather rebuild something ten time than read the directions! Of course, putting something like a deck chair together is infinitely easier when the directions are written by someone who is fluent in your language. This video is the latest from SheepFilms. -via b3ta

When Nikki of WhiMSy Love had a friend staying over for a short bit, she wanted to make her living area more inviting than just the standard airbed. As you can see, the solution was not only cute and clever, but darn right cheery.

Link via Craftzine

Los Angeles-based sculptor Robert Therrien, among other projects, makes giant versions of ordinary household furniture. In a 2004 interview, in response to a question about his use of scale, Therrien wrote:

The artist’s point of view – from the small world – could be viewed as a large ges­ture pub­li­cally. The prac­tice is cre­at­ing some­thing both large and small.

Pub­li­cally, Table and Chairs is per­ceived as a big object, where it actu­ally orig­i­nated from a small detail-a corner bracket sup­port­ing the table leg. Instead of crawl­ing under­neath and pho­tograph­ing an actual table in order to see it, why not shrink your­self and take a normal snapshot?

Link via DudeCraft | Interview | Photo: Toxel

I must say I don’t always understand the purpose of certain furniture designs. My best guess is, much like the models who walk down the runway in ridiculous outfits, they are simply meant to serve as inspiration for the more mundane creations they spawn for the regular folk. Regardless, this is an interesting twist… a chair that’s useless by itself, but perfectly designed to integrate (and aesthetically enhance) any gross and uncomfortable chair you have lying around.

Titled the ‘Chair Dress’ by Design Studio Maezm, the actual product in this case cannot even be sat upon without bending too the floor – its soft frame and sofa-style is not sufficient to hold up your weight. However, the chair you place it over as a cover can (hopefully) pick up the extra pounds … and the ‘dressing’ has some basic structural rigidity from its thickness and shape.

Link

British custom furniture maker David Fletcher makes capstan tables — tables that expand and contract radially. They’re handy in confined spaces, such as yachts. When the transformation is complete, the surfaces look quite seamless.

Link via Make

The Jetsons promised us that we’d have a flying car that turned into a briefcase. Well, that’s probably still pretty far off, but in the meantime, here’s five suitcases that turn into chairs and pet beds.

Sometimes they’re nicely upholstered, sometimes leather, and sometimes just simple but functional.

As with Katie Thompson’s aforementioned ‘Recreate’ range, the SitBag line of furniture cleverly makes use of old suitcases in its quest for unique seating, and it definitely works. Created by Turkish design collective MayBeDesign, these chairs have a more retro feel than their South African counterparts, due in part to the choice of suitcases and their fantastic upholstering. More so than any of the other examples, I could actually imagine a couple of these and an ottoman scattered around the room.

Link – via mentalfloss

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by nmiller.

Neatoramanaut Dennis wrote to us about the set of furniture that his girlfriend (who is studying mechanical engineering in Germany and is apparently very, very handy) made for their apartment:

[Everything was] created by my girlfriend Judith for her apartment. We both love video games, especially Super Mario. She’s currently studying Mechanical Engineering in Germany and has also built an incredible lightsaber for my birthday. She’s a hardcore Super Mario Land (Game Boy) gamer and we both are fans of the whole franchise.

I designed the shelf for our growing collection of videogames (almost 200 Wii games) and I thought the boxes would be perfect with the backround [of hills] and a cloud (all made of wood). Beside the shelf was a small table for the phone and the Internet and I thought it would be cool if we could have a warp pipe too. So she’s created the warp pipe based on a garbage can [that] big enough to hide all the cables.

We’ve bought the figures and the mushroom to make it perfect. I designed the Game Boy clock [to include] the Super Mario Land scene with objects as numbers, because it is her favorite game … It works very well with the wall color and it’s not too colorful …

Currently she’s working on a small Koopa shell (the same size as the mushroom) for the shelf. So I’m just the guy with the ideas and she’s my Super Judith! ;o)

More pic of the fantastic Mario furniture (and the super cool lightsaber) over yonder at the Neatorama Spotlight blog: Link – Thanks Dennis!

British artist Rob Smith has some lovely wood carvings in his deviantART gallery. One of the most striking is this table that looks like it’s melting. It’s made of recycled oak and took him four weeks to make.

Link via DudeCraft | Gallery

The Do Hit Chair by Marijn van der Poll turns you into a (very aggressive) designer, letting you (literally) bang out your own chair design. You get a metal box and a hammer, and how it ends it depends on your strong arms and imagination!

Link – via incrediblethings

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by tj241.

Los Angeles-based artist Ramon Coronado made furniture from shopping carts. He calls the project “Mercado Negro” and his ambition lies in “reclaiming an ordinary, everyday object and transforming it into a whole new object.” At the link, you can see many more pictures, as well as photographs from his workshop as Coronado constructed these pieces.

Link via Fast Company | Photo: Ramon Coronado

Photo: Mocoloco

Here at Neatorama, we’ve previously featured Leandro Erlich’s amazing illusions. One of his more recent works is a couch made out of chocolate. Even at very close range, it looks just like a brown leather couch, right down to the stitching, buttons, and leather folds. More images at the link.

Link via The Presurfer

It’s probably not strong enough to support a human user, but Liddy Scheffknecht and Armin B. Wagner’s pop-up cardboard office sure is nifty-looking. The entire structure folds into a portable flat panel.

Via Gizmodo | Armin B. Wagner | Liddy Scheffknecht | Previously on Neatorama: Cardboard Office

Photo: Jason Taylor

A few years ago, British designer Jason Taylor created a furniture set made to look like bristle brushes. So far, he’s made two tables and a trio of stools using this theme.

Link via Make | Official Website

Photo: Kibardin Design

Prague-based Russian designer Vadim Kibardin created the Deep Forest Lounge Chair out of 374 wooden dowels, carefully molded to seat a person comfortably. Each is custom-made and priced at $6,584. More pictures at the link.

Link via Gizmodo

Is that an alien being disguised as furniture or is it artwork by Julian Göthe?

This wonderful piece is part of Julian Göthe’s exhibition "Events during Flood" at the Galerie Buchholz in 2008 but just in case I’m mistaken let me just say I, for one, welcome our new furniture overlords: Link

Photo:dezeen

Dutch designer Erik De Nijs created Suited Case — a collection of four functional suitcases that can be linked together in the form of a couch. His goal was to give travelers a taste of home while away:

This concept came from a research on nostalgia during travelling. When a familiar object from home is taken with you on a trip you feel much more at ease. And which object is more familiar then your own comfortable couch.

The fabrics which are used to cover the suit cases emphasize the homely feeling. I searched for a combination of fabrics which amplify each other and which create a prominent image. By using prints on the large luggage and the pad on the hand luggage I tried to put down a lively picture.

The work will be on display at the upcoming Dutch Design Week in Eindoven. You can view more pictures at the link.

Link via Geekologie | Dutch Design Week | Artist’s Website

Ever wonder how IKEA makes their furniture sturdy yet light? The secret is the honeycomb skeleton inside their tabletops. National Geographic went inside an IKEA factory in Poland: Link

Photo: Scott Jarvie

But I wouldn’t suggest sitting in it — it’s an art piece rather than functional furniture. Scott Jarvie made the Clutch Chair out of 10,000 drinking straws after “a microscopic observation of the structural composition of trees and the directional properties of Capillary tubes….” You can view more pictures at the link.

Link via GearFuse

Wu added that her other inspiration for a chair with holes came from plant cells. The appearance of the holes makes people believe that the chair can breathe. Moreover, for the movement of either sitting down, being seated or standing up, the chair can transform in accordance with sitting posture, acting as if it were breathing.

Click on the link for larger images.

Link via DVICE | Images: CCTV

Image: Gabriel Cañas

Mexican industrial designer Gabriel Cañas created this fiberglass Tetris-inspired chair. So far, it’s one-of-a-kind, so it’s not yet available for retail. Follow the link to Cañas’ portfolio for more odd furniture.

Link via GearFuse | Previously on Neatorama: Tetris Furniture

It might not be comfortable or all that functional, but this shopping cart chair is just undeniably cool. It can even work as a wheelchair if necessary. Instructables can tell you how to make one of your very own.

Link

If you’re like me, you have a major problem with cables taking over your home life. Here’s a great, visually interesting way to overkill the solution -a whole wall of outlets.

Link

Peter Cook and Becky Northey started making what they call Pooktre, the shaped plum trees into art and furniture. They started by making trees into a coffee table and a mirror frame. The chair above is one of the greatest. They harvest the trees in the fall and make new art from the stumps, which make new growth.

Link