The Design Diet

If you're not on a diet of Indonesian berries harvested under a full moon by civet cats, then you're probably subjecting your black Hyundaicard to eyewatering personal training fees this new year. Ever the pragmatist, Design Trawler offers up a diet that is sure to get your mind and body in shape.

For just over a thousand coins [no, not penny variety] this WaterRower in black American Walnut from the Conran Shop is all you need... well, apart from the optional laptop stand, said laptop and some Porsche Design apparel. With it's smooth-as-silk operation, circular water drum and satisfying 'splash' with every stroke; when the design is right, working out becomes a delight not a chore.

Whoever said you can't check Bloomberg or take that important video conference whilst pretending to be on the Thames in your navy blues?

Triple Glazed Provocation

Sometimes you see something that needs a second take. Other times, the impact of a first impression blows away the need for even a second glance. That's the effect of graphic artist Patrick Thomas's brilliant target prints. Thomas screenprints a fluro heart over discarded Braundruck shooting range targets - playfully, poignantly, and perhaps alarmingly, marrying the two iconic forms together.

Using a canvas that has been pierced by a bullet creates a work that is violent and thought provoking. Framing it required equal levels of consideration. Mounting the print between two sheets of glass allows it to float; fragile, it's captured and suspended in time and space. A third pane of glazing with a mount and gunmetal frame completes the metaphor.

Introducing Ultraloft

If you don't like something; you can either stay well back and find something you do like, or stick around and be part of the solution. Well, it seems unlikely that newbuild developers and buy-to-let speculators are going to disappear anytime soon. Fifty shades of trade matt white, laminate oak and halogen spots remain de rigueur and, that's just not on. Something needs to be done. Well, something other than lambasting offending developers at prestigious award ceremonies.

Introducing Ultraloft by Design Trawler. With the Man Cave sold [to a delightful young lady as it would turn out], and despite my severe allergy to newbuilds, the latest chapter of design transformation enlightenment begins today. Taking on a generic London newbuild [pictured], Design Trawler will, over the course of the coming months, document its rise from magnolia mediocrity to design super-stardom.

Sourcing the very best in design and design thinking from Sweden to Seoul, being part of the solution is the objective. With more space will come some great new furniture, technology, art and innovative materials. From old friends such as the penny floor, to long held design desires [secret door in a bookcase anyone?], think of it as Design Trawler 2.0 - Because newbuild is no excuse!

Contemporary Arabesque in 2014

It's a new year, which can only mean new trends, new textures, and new tastes. Dishing up the veritable feast of design in 2014, Design Trawler puts forward the prediction of what's going to be shaping the popular discerning aesthetic this year.

Last year the chips were stacked on deep textures, reflective fabrics, and warmer metals such as copper and brass. This looks set to continue [ex. copper], but as the world grows achingly bored of recession-induced restraint, materials and design are going to become richer and more confident.

Pattern will be at the forefront and the Middle East is showing increasing signs of maturity in this space. Contemporary geometrics in warm silvers and golds [like the pictured lattice doors at I. M. Pei's breathtaking Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar] sit beautifully against the vanguard of old money materials such as marble and lacquer. Similarly, 3D printing will drive a thirst for this intricate detail, but in a more organic form long championed by Zaha Hadid and Karim Rashid.

Design Hurricane - Toronto's William Ashley

Trawling recently in Toronto, I stumbled across deluxe design store William Ashley. Spotting a quirky hurricane lamp in the unassuming window, the pictured flame holder features a carved acacia-wood base and domed glass shade reminiscent of a mushroom-cup [I'll take two of those please].

And it's perhaps pertinent that the hurricane lamp was on display up front, as William Ashley is an inexplicable and never ending cave of delights that needs to be explored. Baccarat crystal in every shape and size, mind blowing Brazilian chrome barware from Riva, and $20,000 candelabras.

Alongside fine personalised stationary from Crane & Co. sits Lalique, Kate Spade and Alessi. It's the sort of store worthy of being delivered with a big bow; as the complete gift registry for the next Royal wedding.

Lexon Flow - An Audio Carriage

The boys at Lexon continue to impress with their well turned out portable tuners. Brother to the previously featured Mini Dolemen, and still giving Uncle Bose a run for it's money in the design department, Lexon's Flow radio is brilliantly designed by Philip Wong. With it's glassy casing and clean, uncluttered narrative, the Flow would look superb on a mantle a'la carriage for the New Year.

Goose Down Forts in Duck Egg Blue

More alphabet inspired design cues, this time from the Middle East. Of particular interest in Doha's Cool Corner Suite is this headboard, or rather lack of one. Instead of being fixed to the bed, or protruding from the wall, the headboard is recessed in a gently curving cocoon of pale ivory and duck egg blue leather.

In retrospect it works brilliantly. Rather than shunting the bed out in to the middle of the bedroom, providing ample access to masked assailants and kidnappers [Design Trawler takes his night time security very seriously], the 'anti-headboard' gives the bed a reassuring 'design hug' and creates a wrap around, fort-like personal space that negates the need for dozens of goose-down castle walls.

Turning Walls Upside Down

Back in the days before Eames recliners and under floor heating, man had the clever idea of surrounding himself with walls. Clever because walls protected him from wind and sabre-tooth tigers, and especially clever because several thousand years later they provide ample opportunity for hanging Damien Hists, erecting great shelves filled with books and installing roaring fireplaces.

So walls are great, but unless you live in the Barcelona Pavilion, they also have a pesky tendency to block out light. But what if rather than blocking out the light, walls provided a internal source of light? That's the approach rAndom International have done with guest rooms at the W Taipei. Backlighting the very fabric of a room is blissfully simple and something I'd love to see upscaled in the design of an entire home.

Smart Toilets - Bottom of UK's List

Regular visitors to Japan will be familiar with the discretely positioned control panels in water closets across the country. While in the UK we're wirelessly streaming music around the house, operating heating from tablet and opening curtains with smartphones... we happily endure chilly loo seats.

But it's not for Japan's want of trying. Premier league toilet seat manufacturer Toto has had it's showroom in London's Clerkenwell for some years now, and even Samsung offer a remote control heating, washing and drying solution for under £200 (wireless streaming is of course, um, entirely optional).

Mr Loewy's Office Express

Google's ubiquitous home page 'doodles' have many incarnations; but one that stopped me in my tracks (literally) was this month's homage to the a father of industrial design, Raymond Loewy. The search giant's moniker has been morphed in to an achingly attractive streamline-moderne locomotive reminiscent of Mr Loewy's Pennsylvania Railroad S1.

From transport [the iconic blue and white livery of Air Force One] to tableware [Le Creuset's Coquelle casserole dishes], Loewy's influence was impressive and still making it's mark. This handsome office tidy from Troika spotted in Moscow's Tsvetnow Central Market being case in point.

That Trawler in the Window

London isn't known for its high-rise residential living. If you're not in the Shard's £50m penthouse, or perched high up in the Barbican's brutalist towers you're unlikely to have a Manhattan view. But for said tower-happy capitals, built-in daybeds like the one pictured here at the W Taipei are a sure win.

Snuggling up to a pane of glass on the 30th floor with a copy of Monocle magazine and the changing lights of the city on your shoulder is quite something. The oriental style window platform comes closest to beating a classic Eames lounger and a fireplace for ultimate comfort in consuming design tomes.

Design in Doha - World Cup Fever

With Qatar hosting the 2022 World Cup, Design Trawler thought it only prudent to fly in to Doha to check out the local design scene. Avoiding the obvious comparisons to other Gulf nations and a penchant for the diamond clad, gold plated and designer-trimmed, Doha is dabbling in design.

Lead by the W Hotel, and Dubai-based interiors store The One, football fever is very much on the cards. This suitably themed leather-clad coffee table sits alongside a similarly, um, forward expression of Premier League brand affiliation - because what footballer wouldn't want a Gucci stripe armchair?

Article #200 - The Straw Donkey

When your Dad is Sir Norman Foster, and your husband, the former editor of Esquire and Wallpaper* Magazines, it's likely you'll have some wise things to say about design. India Knight, doesn't disappoint.

Speaking about how design has become democratised [first brought to my attention by BMW designer Chris Bangle], and echoing Sir David Tang's bashing of "overly done interior-designed numbers", Knight brilliantly speaks of 'straw donkies'; the things we display in our homes that we love. Freed of the tyranny of 'ghastly good taste', we're confident to design for a taste that is uniquely ours.

A fitting manifesto, and for Design Trawler's 200th article, something which I continue to believe in. For as 'tasteful' as show homes and hotel suites are, the very best interiors are the ones with the confidence to be original. Read the full article below...

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Bull Market Reflections

While cost-conscious consumers have been spurred on by the 'innocent smoothie' approach to quiet design and paired-down home crafts, the ultra wealthy have been charting new territories with taller, bigger and more innovative interiors than ever before. True of Moscow, like many global capitals, this Minotaur Mirror sits in the city's excellent DesignBoom store.

With the head of a bull, and body of... whoever happens to be gazing in to it, the functional/sculptural work is similar to the superb mirrored sculptures by Chelsea based artist Arran Gregory.

Havana Inspired Home Fragrance

I'll always remember the time I was at an 'open day' at London's Jermyn Street. From shirts to cigars, local stores were showcasing the best of London's fine handmade crafts. In the Davidoff shop on the corner of St. James, a father and his two young children were leaning over a Cuban craftsman rolling tobacco leaves in to perfect torpedoes. All three gazed over the man, with the father pointing to the perfectly cut cigars in formation; "look how they're all exactly the same size" - the delightful young daughter perfectly quipping "Daddy, this shop smells like you when you come back from London!"

Priceless. And if ever you wish to accentuate your home with the fragrance of Havana's finest, Boticario de Havana Fragrancia de Casa by Archipelago is the scent to go for. While not exactly the scent of 'Daddy ex London', think coffee, jojoba and tobacco flower with extracts of orange, sugar cane & pineapple.