Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Modest Student Micro-Cottage is a Mere 12 Square Meters

Posted: 20 Nov 2012 10:00 AM PST

At a few hundred dollars per month, renting this place does not buy you a great deal of space – but what you do get is cozy, dynamic and well-designed, inside and out by AF Bostader in Sweden.

The goal was to create stand-alone student housing for those who wished to live outside of shared-building arrangements, but at well under regional market prices – and the result has been steady competition by students to live there.

The company is now petitioning authorities to expand and meet demand, creating more of these autonomous structures for student living – the question on the mind of the city planners, however, is whether this is a sustainable strategy for dense educational dwelling needs.

Still, there is something to be said for the fact that despite economies of scale, these stand-alone structures work out to be cheaper to build and rent than the more-compact solutions of multi-unit buildings.

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Pop-Up Corner Lamps Illuminate those Hard-to-Light Places

Posted: 19 Nov 2012 04:00 PM PST

Standing lamps in corners often feel a bit like round pegs in square holes, not quite fitting the space in a way that would feel intentional.

This flat-pack, fold-out solution from Well Well Designers is a low-cost and elegantly-designed approach that is minimalist in terms of both materials and appearance.

The product packaging and typography are all comprehensively considered in form and function – this is not a typical in-the-box retail object, but a simple black (or blue or red) on white approach.

“The Pop-up corner light is delivered in an envelope. The lamp is constructed from a sheet of polypropylene. The sheet is cut and incised, in such a way to produce a square, triangular or circular module when folded at a 90° angle. Intended for the corner of a room, the lamp creates a luminous shape, interacting with the architecture. It cleverly takes advantage of a space often unexploited in design.”