This flexible study space in Jongno-gu, Seoul is designed by YounghanChung Architects in an attempt to “eliminate unnecessary spaces as much as possible”. Dubbed Tiny Forest, the two-story building was built for a retired university lecturer, who wanted to have a separate space from her main home – a space that would function as a study, and as an intimate space to host and entertain guests. The space is inspired by a sarangbang which is found in traditional Korean homes, where usually the man of the house hosts guests or indulges in hobbies.
Designer: YounghanChung Architects
“Spaces as a hobby space or study have gradually loosened in the frame of housing, and lost the power of their original function,” said founder Younghan Chung. “However, the desire to escape from the house and experience a space like a microcosm for oneself is desperate for all of us living in modern times…[so] this building was intended to create a small private room,” he said.
Tiny Forest was designed to be a dedicated study and relaxation space, a serene zone that is nestled away from the hustle and bustle of the main house. The building is made up of two stacked cubes, with the upper cube a little rotated, while both are supported by a steel frame, and clad in corrugated metal in the color white. The different floors of the space were designed as single and flexible spaces, each one amped with a bathroom and generous storage space. The spaces are defined by minimal fittings and fixings, creating a smooth and quaint area. “Conventional structural methods can trap the choreography of users with diverse ways of life within a strictly prescribed framework,” said Chung.
The ground floor features an exposed steel structure in the color white, as well as a massive shopfront-style window that provides views of the street, while also holding an external bench. The space above is wood-lined creating a warm and minimal ambiance, and is equipped with built-in desk space and bookshelves alongside one wall. An external spiral staircase connects both the two floors and is located at the rear of the building. While another staircase connects the western side of the upper level to a tranquil rooftop garden.
This flexible study space in Jongno-gu, Seoul is designed by YounghanChung Architects in an attempt to “eliminate unnecessary spaces as much as possible”. Dubbed Tiny Forest, the two-story building was built for a retired university lecturer, who wanted to have a separate space from her main home – a space that would function as a study, and as an intimate space to host and entertain guests. The space is inspired by a sarangbang which is found in traditional Korean homes, where usually the man of the house hosts guests or indulges in hobbies.
Designer: YounghanChung Architects
“Spaces as a hobby space or study have gradually loosened in the frame of housing, and lost the power of their original function,” said founder Younghan Chung. “However, the desire to escape from the house and experience a space like a microcosm for oneself is desperate for all of us living in modern times…[so] this building was intended to create a small private room,” he said.
Tiny Forest was designed to be a dedicated study and relaxation space, a serene zone that is nestled away from the hustle and bustle of the main house. The building is made up of two stacked cubes, with the upper cube a little rotated, while both are supported by a steel frame, and clad in corrugated metal in the color white. The different floors of the space were designed as single and flexible spaces, each one amped with a bathroom and generous storage space. The spaces are defined by minimal fittings and fixings, creating a smooth and quaint area. “Conventional structural methods can trap the choreography of users with diverse ways of life within a strictly prescribed framework,” said Chung.
The ground floor features an exposed steel structure in the color white, as well as a massive shopfront-style window that provides views of the street, while also holding an external bench. The space above is wood-lined creating a warm and minimal ambiance, and is equipped with built-in desk space and bookshelves alongside one wall. An external spiral staircase connects both the two floors and is located at the rear of the building. While another staircase connects the western side of the upper level to a tranquil rooftop garden.
Dubbed the Building Frame of the House, this home in Tokyo is a unique adaptable space for both living and working. It features stepped living areas framed by boardmarked concrete walls. It is designed by IGArchitects to function as “one big room”.
“[The clients] have a vague boundary between their private and work life, they were imagining a house where they can work anywhere and where they can sense the presence of each other wherever in the house,” said founder Masato Igarashi. “With such lifestyle, rather than have small spaces for compact living, the house was designed to have a large volume and scale that makes various interactions between inside and outside space,” he added.
Designer: IGArchitects
The home’s central space is designed to be as open as possible, with the studio organizing the home’s floors as irregularly stepped mezzanine layers. The various floors are connected via a black-metal staircase and a ladder. At the rear of the home, there is a ground-floor kitchen and first-floor bathroom. The bedrooms and the living spaces are located at the front. A massive bookcase is nestled against the southern wall.
The side walls of the home have been left quite blank, with sections of full-height glazing located at the front of the home, which offer a generous amount of natural light. “The floors are divided to make it difficult to see the interior from the outside, which is treated like a wall,” said Igarashi. “The way the space is used overlaps, responding to the residents’ lifestyle,” he continued. “The floors can turn into a seat, table, shelf, ceiling, or bed.”
The boardmarked concrete structures within the home are exposed, which are teamed up with wooden floors and shelving, and metal countertops in the kitchen, creating an interesting contrast. “We selected materials that would develop their own flavor as they age, and we wanted to bring out the texture and strength of the materials and their shades in the space,” said Igarashi. “Since the site is too small to create a garden, the interior and exterior are treated equally, and the materials are unified inside and out.”
Dubbed La Balsanera, this floating house is nestled along the Babahoyo River in Ecuador. Designed by architecture studio Natura Futura Arquitectura and architect Juan Carlos Bamba, this home is located inside a centuries-old floating village that suffers from the risk of disappearing for good! La Balsanera is an effort to preserve the community and to serve as a prime specimen of sustainable redevelopment.
Designer: Natura Futura Arquitectura and Juan Carlos Bamba
The river is closed presently as a commercial fluvial route, and hence the number of floating structures has gone down from two hundred to twenty-five. La Balsanera was designed in an effort to bring back “the tradition of living on the river” according to the architects. The home occupies 70 square meters and is built for a family of three. The family sells food to the community and repairs wooden boats, signifying the socio-economic utility of the river.
La Balsanera features a two-meter-wide extension to a platform that function as terraces for the family to utilize as “productive environments” – for example, a cafe seating area, anchor point, or tourist boat. “La Balsanera explores possible floating solutions that recover local artisan techniques while promoting the active and productive participation of the occupants in vulnerable communities,” said Bamba.
The floating home is constructed from wooden porticos that are built every two meters to build a gabled truss structure. This structure is topped by a corrugated roof that provides shelter to the outdoor terraces, as well as a colorful hammock. The home includes a central space that accommodates a shared living room, kitchen, and dining area, as well as two bedrooms. Two external strips at either end of the space provide a shower, toilet, laundry space, and boat workshop. The space is also equipped with “chazas” which are slatted openings that have been made from recycled wood. These “chazas” help ventilate the space and maintain a cool environment indoors. A bridge functions as an efficient walkway between the mainland and the floating home. It is made using bamboo and various planks of wood. Shutter doors have been incorporated throughout the space, connecting the living spaces to the terraces.
Dire situations bring out the best in humans. And war-torn Ukraine has been a reason for many lifesaving inventions that are not only helping here but also opening new avenues in places where the need may arise. One such creation is the Life Chariot: a lightweight offroad trailer for combat rescue and evacuation. Designed without typical emergency lighting and anything like the MEDEVAC vehicles, we usually see in evacuation missions, the rescue trailer is inspired by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and its growing demand for healthcare and evacuation vehicles.
This Life Chariot is developed by Polish industrial designer, Piotr Tluszcz, who, recognizing the hardships of Ukrainian medics (trying to rescue lives from the war-shattered areas), wanted to build an all-terrain solution to help them with their evacuation missions. The Life Chariot is therefore made lightweight and comes with Da Orffo off-road suspension to make it easier and safer to rescue the wounded than in the truck, which the Ukrainian medics do at the moment.
Designer: Lodz Design
Given its novel, steel skeleton design and off-road suspension, this MEDEVAC-like trailer provides a convenient and smooth ride for the patient onboard. For this, the Life Chariot comes with an adjustable hitch to tow behind a capable vehicle and features a removable stretcher to accommodate one wounded person and two medics on either side, sitting stable on strapped seats with medical equipment overhead for easy access.
Riding smoothly over any terrain, the trailer helps medical evacuation teams in conflict zones and other challenging environments to help them carry out rescues briskly and with the least danger to any parties. When the injured person in need of medical assistance is strapped up to the stretcher, the medics can hop onboard and cover the protective steel skeleton body of the trailer with a fireproof tarpaulin and allow the stretcher into its stipulated mount through the side or rear.
The trailer, which is more like a steel-caged contraption at first sight, also has an additional stretcher mount on the supposed roof. Two such Life Chariots have already been handed to the Ukrainian military and one to a voluntary Polish medic unit for testing. The Life Chariot was recently awarded the James Dyson Humanitarian Award. The designer is looking to utilize the prize money and the feedback from Ukrainian and Polish units for the betterment of the rescue trailer.
Called the Floating Bamboo House, this architectural prototype by Vietnamese studio H&P Architects is exactly what it sounds like! The floating home is built from bamboo and is designed to withstand rising sea levels. It has been created with the intention to provide locals who are living in and around the Mekong Delta in Vietnam with a suitable model for climate-resilient housing.
Designer: H&P Architects
“Vietnam is one of the hardest-hit countries in the world by climate change,” said H&P Architects founder Đoàn Thanh Hà. “Floating Bamboo House is believed to provide a useful alternative for millions of poor households to create a stable and safe accommodation themselves, and adapt to the worst scenario of responding to climate change,” he continued. The Floating Bamboo House is designed to be a three-compartment home equipped with a square ground floor plan that occupies six by six meters. The home also has a first-floor story in its roof eaves.
The exterior of the Floating Bamboo House is inspired by the vernacular Rông House, which is a traditional and rural Vietnamese building typology amped with a tall and steep thatched roof. The house is built using locally sourced solid-cored bamboo pieces, which have a diameter of three to five centimeters and three or six meters long. The external facade is covered with lightweight bamboo screens, woven bamboo sheets, leaves, and corrugated iron. Plastic drums have been fixated to the underside of the house to allow it to float. A septic tank, water tank, and filter tank have also been attached here.
“Floating Bamboo Houses [could be] connected with each other by floating playing grounds, vegetable-growing rafts [and] fish-raising areas,” the studio said. The home was designed for adaptation. It features a door system that can be opened and closed, to offer shelter and protection from adverse and extreme weather situations. Also, the floor panels on the upper storey can be removed, allowing the structure to be used as a library, classroom, or communal meeting space. H&P Architects believe that in the future multiple floating homes can be built, and formed together to create floating villages.
If you need a break from your hectic city life and want to unwind in a cozy little cabin, then we’ve found the perfect little retreat for you. I personally love cabins and think they’re the best type of vacation out there. Cabins are peaceful and tranquil, and an excellent option to help you dump your city life and woes, and simply unwind in the beauty of nature. If you’re looking for your next cabin retreat, then you may want to consider Hytta in Lípa nad Dřevnicí, Czech Republic.
Designers: Dominik Ilichman and Adam Hofman
Designed by Dominik Ilichman and Adam Hofman, the Hytta cabin is a serene cabin inspired by Scandinavian design and minimalism. The quaint cabin is designed to provide a calm and distraction-free environment, offering you a much-needed break from your hectic everyday life. Hytta is tucked away on the outskirts of a pine forest, which makes for an excellent location. It is designed to be a place where residents can nurture their thoughts, and dig deeper into their creative ideas without the disruptions and distractions of everyday life. Hytta is an antidote to these situations and serves as a tranquil retreat for relaxation and contemplation.
The cabin features a double-height living area, a quality workspace, a cozy bedroom, and sleeping nooks. The house is also complemented by a Finnish sauna with a cold immersion tub. It is pretty minimalist in nature and is heavily inspired by Scandinavian minimalism, which basically eradicates all unnecessary elements that can distract someone. Hytta perfectly merges modern functionality and convenience with minimalism by providing top-notch amenities. It features a spacious terrace, as well as windows on all sides, which builds a serene indoor-outdoor connection, and allows nature to intersperse with the space.
Since the cabin is nestled on a slope at the forest’s edge, it gives it an element of isolation, allowing it to be protected from the hustle and bustle of city life, while providing privacy as well. The cabin is inspired by the form of a hunting cabin, which provides it with a unique and distinctive shape, and allows it to stand out.
We’re not that far from the smart homes of science fiction, especially with robots that are literally making their way inside our living spaces. The most common is, of course, the circular vacuums and mops that pick up after our mess, but other kinds of smart robots have started to become part of our way of life as well. They may serve different purposes, but a lot of them share a common motif, one that puts more emphasis on technological marvels over other aspects. While that’s not exactly bad, it also takes for granted how user experiences are also driven by aesthetics and comfort, something that cold, impersonal machines are unable to convey. Taking a cue from smart speakers that masquerade as works of art, this home assistant robot concept bucks the trend and instead portrays an appearance that could easily be mistaken for a side table or some other piece of minimalist furniture.
Designers: Haechan Ryu, Haechan Jeong
Perhaps in a few decades, home designs will have become so futuristic that robots won’t look out of place, even if they look mechanical and clinical. At the moment, however, they not only clash with the more organic and life-filled interiors of most homes, they also look unapproachable and alien from an emotional and psychological perspective. We’re still not used to these kinds of smart appliances, so their unusual appearance further distances them from acceptance.
Cor! is a design concept for a home assistant robot that can help humans with their chores while seamlessly blending with its surroundings inside your abode. Sure, it still looks like an appliance on wheels, but its more minimalist and simpler appearance makes it fit better with other furniture without sacrificing function. In fact, its circular plate on top of a truncated pyramid makes it look no different from a unique side table or movable shelf.
That tabletop actually hides Cor!’s core functionality. In a nutshell, it’s a platform that can be raised or lowered as needed and tilt forward to actually do some work. For example, it can dump the contents of a laundry basket into a washing machine, water plants with a pot sitting on top, or dispense food for pets. Cor! can even automatically fetch these “modules” from a shelf that acts as its base, sliding beneath the shelf so that the object on top magnetically latches on the tabletop. And yes, it can also actually hold items on top like a regular table, such as drinks, phones, books, and anything that can fit on top of it.
Cor! also has other functions, such as hidden containers in its base, a ring mood lighting beneath the tabletop, obstacle avoidance, and even an emergency stop button. The real value of this concept, however, lies not in its smart functions but in its smart design, allowing it to be easily integrated into a home’s existing design and into people’s lives.
We’ve been seeing a torrential and exciting downpour of automotive designs at Yanko Design for the past few months. Each automotive was innovative, bringing to us something we had never seen nor experienced before. From killer speed to dashing good looks, to impenetrable safety standards, every automotive we featured at YD broke some design barrier for us, and hopefully, they did the same for you as well. Hence, we’ve curated a collection of automotive designs that we feel were the best of the lot. From a bicycle with square wheels to a Porsche e-motorbike concept – each of these drool-worthy automobiles is mercilessly pushing the boundaries of the automotive industry. Automotive enthusiasts will be itching to get their hands on them, and take them for a spin on the streets!
1. Ford Mini Bronco
The Ford Mini Bronco is designed by Mexico-based Kobayashi, and it provides a sneak peek into the year 2030 – the year this car is designed for. It features modern elements with a compact, two-door configuration, which reminds one of the Suzuki Jimny. The automotive attempts to redefine the off-road segment, by providing it with a unique perspective.
2. Gordieiev’s Bicycle with Square Wheels
Meet the bicycle with square wheels! Designed by Sergii Gordieiev, this innovative bicycle is like a war tank moving on its metal tracks without any wheels! The wheels on the bicycle don’t actually roll, but instead, the rubber on the conveyor belt-like platform rotates as soon as you hit your foot on the pedal. It is completely usable in a city, and you can take turns on it.
3. Mitsubishi DX Concept
Meet the Mitsubishi DX Concept. This is a compact yet versatile lifestyle van that perfectly portrays the company’s commitment to elevating the arena of adventure travel. It is called the “tiny adventure van”, and features a futuristic design. It was showcased at a Japan Mobility Show that focused on awakening the “adventurous spirit within”.
4. Lexus LF-ZC
Dubbed the Lexus LF-ZC, which stands for “Lexus Future Zero-emission Catalyst”, this four-door luxury car is a prototype for Lexus’ future cars. The automotive is equipped with a highly anticipated solid state ‘prismatic’ battery technology that will be showcased in Lexus’ cars by 2026. The battery will cover 1000 kilometers on a full charge.
5. Adventure Electric Unicycle
The Adventure electric unicycle was truly designed to push the boundaries of exploration! It features a beefy 4000 W motor capable of producing 200 Nm (147.5 lb. ft) of torque and 850 N traction force. This converts it into a powerful commuter that is ready to conquer steep inclines and uneven terrain with the utmost ease and efficiency! It accelerates from 0 to 50 km/h in just 2.5 seconds and goes at a top speed of 110 km/h.
6. Diode
Designed by Tien Hung, the Diode is an e-bike concept that features a neo-minimalist design that celebrates the future of electric power train. The form and design of the bike are almost invisible, except for one singular horizontal pillar that spans from the dashboard to the taillight. There is a large battery module located under the pillar.
7. MOQBA
The MOQBA is not simply a two-wheeled wonder, it rides on four independent legs with wheel extensions, so it can be called an electric mecha, or more accurately a mini mecha. MOQBA gets a conventional saddle which can morph into supporting seating when climbing up the stairs or moving ahead in the walking configuration – in its bike configuration.
8. Acro
Designed by Klissarov Design, the Acro is an ultralight aircraft that completely eliminates the need for a pilot’s license. The aircraft utilizes AI to provide assistance during operation, offering a harmonious, smooth, and safe flying experience. The use of AI is quite unique and useful, as it allows a large range of aviation enthusiasts to experience the thrill of piloting their own aircraft.
9. Porsche 619 Electric Concept
Designed by Jackson Zhang, the Porsche 619 electric concept is an exciting response to Porsche’s plans to go electric by 2030. The 619 is the first proper electric motorcycle we’ve seen, and it features a unique design, putting Porsche’s automotive DNA in the backseat, while also creating something that is minimalist, geometry-driven, and iconic!
10. Restorer NEV
The Restorer NEV is a chick four-wheeler with spacious interiors that can accommodate a family of four! It was revealed during the motorsports gathering at the Quail. The zero-emission urban ride is powered by a twin-electric motor drivetrain that is supported by pouch-cell lithium-ion batteries. This allows the NEV to reach a top speed of 25 mph!
If you’re looking for a stunning little cabin in the woods to get away to and relax, then you’ve reached the right place. Cabins are by far the best type of vacation I’ve come across. They’re a peaceful and tranquil option to abandon your urban life and woes, and simply unwind in nature. If you’re wondering where to head for your next cabin retreat, you can refer to this collection of beautiful and super cozy cabins we’ve gathered. They’re the perfect safe haven nestled in the midst of nature, providing a break from your everyday hectic life. And we’ve found a pretty awesome cabin for you – meet the Copper Harbor house!
Designer: Prentiss Balance Wickline Architects
Designed by the US architecture firm Prentiss Balance Wickline Architects, the Copper Harbour house is located on the rugged Keweenaw Peninsula with fantastic views of Lake Superior – which is the largest Great Lake in North America. The quaint cabin features a sturdy shell built from weathering steel, giving it a homely yet rugged feel. The cabin is tucked away in a “very remote destination with an industrial history”.
The cabin is designed to be modern and minimal, a perfect abode for a couple who love mountain biking. The home is meant to withstand the extreme weather conditions of the area. “Set in a very remote destination with an industrial history, Copper Harbor blends into the shoreline while standing out with its unique design,” said Seattle-based Prentiss Balance Wickline Architects. The home occupies 1400 square feet and includes two volumes that are conjoined with a central circulation spine.
Quite interesting, there is a building located behind the cabin which serves as a bike workshop. The cabin and workshop are separated using a patio which functions as an “exterior room protected from the wind”. All three buildings are covered in a rugged exterior shell built from corrugated steel. Since the shell is made using pre-rusted steel, it has an intriguing orangish shade that references the color of the soil. “The solidity of each shell is contrasted with a wall of glass providing light, directing views, and extending the living space out on cantilevered decks toward the water,” concluded the architects.
