Yanko Design - Form Beyond Function

Imagine this. You’re at home with the TV on, watching an intense movie. You’ve got a tub of popcorn resting on the table beside you. That table also happens to be a 360° speaker, giving you hi-def rich sound while also doubling up as a wonderfully charming piece of furniture!

The Mellow table is what you get when Salone Del Mobile meets the Consumer Electronics Show. It presents a new age for decor that becomes multi-purpose by integrating themselves with technology. A trend even Bang and Olufsen is beginning to catch on to, with their highly decorative wall-hanging speakers, and Norton, with its beautiful Wi-Fi router that looks like it was blessed by Swarovski. The Mellow is a multimedia table. Its elegant wood+fabric construction makes it fit classically into any home without standing out too much. The thing that does make it stand out though, is that under the table’s surface lie four 15W speakers as well as 4 passive radiators, churning out sound capable of transforming your house into a cinema, or making it the perfect venue for everything from easy-listening to a rocking house party! Working wirelessly with any multimedia device, and a number of third-party music platforms, the Mellow table can be kept anywhere in your room without worrying about cables near your tables. It does however come with an auxiliary input for non-wireless devices. The Mellow comes with embroidered controls on its fabric facade, allowing you to increase/decrease the volume or pause and play tracks. The Mellow also boasts of a 6600mAh battery on the inside, capable of not just giving you 7 hours of playback, but also useful for charging your phones (via 2 USB ports on the side). Also a cleverly convenient way to keep your phone near the table for a much better wireless playback experience! Is your side-table this capable??

P.S. Hurry! For limited-time (4 days only) our Yanko Design readers are in for quite a treat, with the YD Special earlybird pledge tier available for grabs!

Designer: Creatio Design

BUY IT HERE: $269.00 $299.00

If you’re into buildings or have a love for architecture, boy do we have news for you! Every week, this time and day, we’ll do a round-up of the most inspirational architecture from all around the world. Things that will impress and inspire! Here’s series #1 in architecture worth bookmarking. (Bookmarkitecture?)

1. Thailand’s baan puripuri have envisioned this townhouse with a very strong Piet Mondrian meets Architecture vibe to it. Combine that with a private backyard garden and you’ve got the perfect home-sweet-home!

2. Glass and Aluminum cone together wonderfully to give the Global Cosmeceutical Center building in South Korea a professional look-and-feel. We love the repetitiveness of the design, with just mild changes from left to right, giving it sense of fluidity in rigidity.

3. Haven’t you always wanted to experience a car-wash from outside the car?! This temporary pavilion’s aim was to create an experience to satiate that strangely curious feeling!

4. We’re loving this front facade of the N1 Housing project by Studio Simovic. The balconies are flushed with the facade of the building and instead of windows, you have doors that open outwards, instantly transforming the view into a balcony. Not to mention, it looks so interesting from outside to see doors that seemingly open outwards into plain nothingness!

5. This two storeyed shack in the woods is a perfect way to escape the madness of the city. Plus, it has a sun-roof!

6. Located near an Odunpazari (wood market in Turkish), this Modern Art Museum actually uses and shows off layered strips of timber as a primary material for its construction. Witness how amazing the cantilevered sections look!

7. A modular community that fits above existing buildings in NYC to level the skyline. When buildings have air rights to build up to a certain height but don’t, the affordable housing can utilize the building’s unused “air right” to provide reasonable and modular housing. Stroke of genius!

8. Tall houses in the cities provide more floors for more occupants. This vertical house in Dallas sits among greenery. Its height allows it to rise above the foliage and provide a brilliant view of the skyline and the sunset!

9. Wouldn’t you love to live in one of the world’s seven wonders?? Or at least in a building inspired by it? Drawing inspiration from the ancient Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Garden Hill project in Birmingham comprises two staggered 25-storey towers, with private and communal gardens on each level of terraces.

10. A wooden house among the woods, the Qiyun Mountain Tree House has rooms with vastly different views, allowing visitors to bask in the awesomeness of the forest. A glass glazed gallery at the beginning of the house gives you a wonderfully stretched out panoramic picture of the greens.

The Lyrea is a table lamp that’s just at this perfect crossroad of beautiful and clever. Its unusual shape makes it stand out from afar, and when you come up close, you’re enchanted by the way it makes clever use of a curved piece of metal to switch between bright and diffused lighting. A small knob below the bulb can be rotated along a linear path, turning the curved metal piece inside (mimicking the action of an ambulance beacon). You simply rotate the knob to adjust the intensity of the light… mechanically rather than electrically! Isn’t it just delightful!?

Designer: JUAM Studio