New York designer Stephen Burks filled the Milan showroom of Italian brand Calligaris with colourful ropes and columns of plastic chairs lashed together last month. Thirteen kilometres of multicoloured ropes were strung from floor to ceiling in the showroom during Milan design week to create vitrines for the resulting pieces. Called Variations, the project was curated by PS design consultants and involved Burks travelling to Calligaris‘ production centre in Manzano, where he conducted experiments in composition using the company’s range of chairs. He also created installations from the chairs by piling them high and binding them in striped ropes.

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New York, meet your newest public libraries.

Holding no more than about 20 books for old and young, the 10 new Little Free Libraries — miniature lending libraries where anyone can take or leave a book under the honor system — will pop up all over downtown Manhattan on Saturday afternoon, and will stand until Sept. 1. A joint project of the PEN World Voices Festival and the Architectural League of New York, the libraries were designed and built by the winners of a small architectural competition, stocked with donations from publishers and looked after by nearby community partners including the Cooper Union, Henry Street Settlement and LaMaMa.

Source: New York Times

Architect Marcel Luchian will be presenting the M House, a residential project in Singera, Moldavia, at the third edition of the GIS Architecture Expo Conference. “The M House Project surprises through its architecture modernism, unconventional forms and combination of materials (glass, concrete) both as regards facade and interior,” says the architect.

Source: Moco Loco

XYZ have designed a multimedia sound and light installation on the façade of the Gran Museo del Mundo Maya in Merida, Mexico. The goal of the recently opened Gran Museo del Mundo Maya, with a collection of some 750,000 objects and 2,600 square metres of permanent and temporary gallery space, is to present Mayan civilization not as archaeological vestiges but as a living culture.

Source: Contemporist

Designed by HŠH Architects to mimic a delicate rippling ribbon, these stairs are beautiful but maybe a little scary to run up and down when you’re in a hurry.

Source: Design Milk

Dror has won Dawntown‘s 2013 Landmark Miami Ideas Competition with Miamilift. The theme this year looked at how cities have come to be identified by individual structures within them, with a brief that invited creatives develop a new symbol for the coastal city–an architectural feature which stands out while also contributing to the image the miami currently projects.

Source: Designboom

A new trend popping up everywhere in the design community is to layer rugs. It’s an easy way to incorporate mixed patterns and lend style to a space while easily be changed up later. Casually layered rugs can be used to subtly but effectively break an open space into zones. Another smart solution is to layer a smaller beloved rug over a solid one to form a border.

Source: Apartment Therapy

Spain-based architecture studio Elii built a pilot house that explores the ways people can produce their own household energy while keeping fit. Called the ‘JF-Kit House’ (short for “Jane Fonda Kit House”), the experimental house requires its occupants to exercise, and turns their workout into electricity for cooking, watching TV and the likes. It not only keeps its occupants healthy, active and in shape—but by making its occupants energetically self-sufficient—it is also environmentally-friendly.

Source: Design Taxi

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Japanese artist Hiromi Hirasaka has created a series of matchsticks which feature facial expressions on their heads, igniting a bit of a humor to what is typically seen as the mundane. Aptly named ‘Kokeshi Matches’, the fire starters already have physical attributes similar to the japanese dolls which have long cylindrical bodies and spherical heads, offering a perfect canvas for fun faces– from pig snouts, to white-tipped pandas, to moustached monsieurs!

Source: Design Boom

April is over now, but we didn’t really get all that many showers, so maybe we’re due for lots of rain in May. reCOVER by Teracrea is a re-imagining of the typical coat stand into a miniature ecosystem. The base of the stand can be placed into any planter, so that your raincoats and drippy umbrellas can nourish the plant.

Source: Design Milk