Core77

Core77 Weekly Roundup (6-8-26 to 6-12-26)

Rain Noe

Here's what we looked at this week:

Audi unveils secret supercar, new design direction.

Industrial designer Fengfan Yang's table re-think with +Halle.

Veteran industrial designer Michael Marriott's Monza, a minimalist shelf bracket.

The UX design flaw of Philips' dual-sided monitor.

Slash Objects' X Deck: a steel and brass monument to vinyl records.

An overproduced day display by an industrial designer's "Stupid Engineering" project.

A vertical coat rack with a nifty assembly method, by industrial designers Oskar Lillo and Juliette Guéganton.

The Mate Go+, an e-bike designed specifically for families hauling kids.

The mesmerizing action of these experimental candles, by designer Thomas D. Westergaard.

Maybe a new EDC trend: Circular multi-tools.

Objet d'esign: an add-on alcove, by industrial designer Daniel Rybakken.

Contour, by industrial designer Adam Miklosi, is a corkboard for your monitor.

+Halle's magnetically-mated Concert Chair, by industrial designer Jamie Wolfond.

Villo Hietanen's legless chairs that use the environment for support.

Legless Chairs that Use the Environment for Support

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Melbourne-based designer Villo Hietanen builds chairs without legs. They source their support from the environment, using magnets, suction units or straps:

I'm especially digging this folding model:

Hietanen goes by the handle Nude Modular, and is a self-taught designer. "I studied industrial design in Year 11*," Hietanen said in an interview with Union Magazine, but dropped out of school to ride BMX bikes. After a stint working in construction, Hietanen began experimenting with creating his own furniture. "I couldn't stop thinking of ideas and wanting to turn them into something. I've got really bad ADHD, so it became a source of dopamine."

*(Year 11 in Australia is 11th grade in the U.S. Who knew ID was a high school option down under!)

"With the magnetic version, I was curious how much force it would take. How many magnets would you need? Would it be easy to remove? I found that if you place the magnets vertically, there's no horizontal interference. So, when you sit on it, it's super stable, but with a bit of leverage, you can pop it off easily."

"What made it even more exciting was taking it out in the world. There's something special about attaching this strange-looking chair to a tree or a metal post. It looks unexpected, and suddenly you're using the environment as part of the object. When I sat on it, it felt like I was part of the tree or structure I was using. Any time I can take a design out into the world and make it interact with its surroundings, it adds another dimension for me. It becomes part of the environment."

You can see Hietanen's ongoing projects here.

+Halle's Magnetically-Mated Concert Chair

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This stacking Concert Chair is by Canadian industrial designer Jamie Wolfond.

It has magnets along its sides, allowing it to perform a visual trick when placed alongside its mates:

"The chair owes its unconventional form to a half round profile which forms its entire structure," Wolfond writes. "When put side-by-side, these profiles form a complete circle, creating the impression of a single circular leg."

"A row of Concert chairs becomes a tidy and unified object, lending itself to gathering, listening and learning. Like a good team member, the Concert Chair works well on its own, and even better together."

Wolfond then adds this mysterious bit: "We are especially excited about the system we developed to accommodate the chairs on uneven floors," he writes—without showing any images of this mechanism, or providing any explanation of how it works.

The chair launched this week at Copenhagen's 3 Days of Design, and is going into production by +Halle. (At press time it hadn't yet appeared on +Halle's website, thus no link.)

A Corkboard for Your Monitor

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This might appeal to those who place sticky notes on their monitor's bezel. Called Contour, it's by Budapest-based industrial designer Adam Miklosi.

It's designed to attach to an iMac, and sits about 20mm behind the plane of the screen.

Is it better than sticky notes? The only advantage I see is that you don't have to orient your note according to that line of adhesive.

For his part, Miklosi writes that the added visual barrier around your screen "[creates] a subtle buffer that helps reduce both visual and acoustic distractions. By screening out movement, conversations, and background activity, it helps users stay focused without isolating them from their surroundings." I think that's kind of a stretch, but then it's been a long time since I worked in a crowded office.

Miklosi's producing Contour via Corkway, a B2B manufacturer of cork objects. They partner with designers as project-based fabricators or development partners, and you can learn more about them here.

Objet D'esign: An Add-On Alcove

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This unusual object is by Norwegian industrial designer Daniel Rybakken. Straddling the boundary between furniture and décor, it's a sort of add-on alcove, fittingly called Niche.

Niche is a shelf referencing the architectural element. The faceted walls and roof transforms the object into something that feels almost like an alcove or a nest (the original meaning of the word niche, from Latin nidus 'nest'). Items placed inside become elevated and highlighted, as if put on a pedestal.

Constructed in powder-coated steel and available in two sizes. Wall-hung or free-standing.

(All images and sketches by Studio Daniel Rybakken. No AI, no renderings. Shot on the 5DsR with the TS-E 90mm / EF 180mm macro)

The object launched yesterday at Copenhagen's 3 Days of Design. It's going into production by Swedish homeware brand Eldvarm.

A Circular Multi-Tool?

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This Geo object, invented by a faceless, anonymous and unnamed company, is a circular multi-tool.

Obviously inspired by a fidget spinner, it features a rotating dial with five tool edges and a lanyard attachment point arrayed around it. You rotate it to expose the desired feature.

The form factor is strange for a tool, and doesn't appear to offer any ergonomic advantage—just novelty, which is what the EDC market craves.

Worn, it looks pretty dorky.

Again, there's no word on who designed this, where it's made, when it's coming out or how much it costs; at this point the object's website is little more than an e-mail harvesting operation. We assume a Kickstarter is on the way--and that this thing will sell like hotcakes.

The Mesmerizing Action of These Experimental Candles

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In the 1960s, Danish industrial designer Jens Quistgaard created these beautiful candleholders for Dansk:

He also designed special candles for them that were "slim, elegant and designed not to drip or bend," explains modern-day Danish designer Thomas D. Westergaard.

"The candleholders can still be found at flea markets all over the world," Westergaard says, but "finding candles for these holders is almost impossible."

Seeking to create his own, Westergaard dove into the world of candlemaking. After much experimentation, he figured out how to recreate the special candles.

Bitten by the candlemaking bug, he continued experimenting, and pushing further:

And further:

Westergaard's videos of his experimental candles became popular on social media. He's now in the process of launching a company, Ceremoni Studio, to commercialize them.

An E-Bike Designed Specifically for Families Hauling Kids

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Child seats for bikes are nothing new. But this Go Plus, an e-bike from Danish manufacturer MATE, was designed from the ground-up specifically for a parent to haul a child.

The lowered frame and extended wheelbase drop the bike's center of gravity, providing stable handling that the company reckons is safer than typical kid-hauling bike set-ups.

You can of course remove the child seat, and use the bike for hauling other things.

The bike features a 250W motor driving the rear wheel. It can hit a top speed of 25km/h (15.5 mph), and offers a range around 80km (50 miles).

The Go Plus is distributed in Scandinavia, Europe, Japan and Australia. It starts around €1,800 (USD $2,083).

A Vertical Coat Rack with a Nifty Assembly Method

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Wall-mounted coat racks should be horizontal, for the sake of UX. But tight European apartments often don't have the space. Industrial designers Oskar Lillo and Juliette Guéganton thus designed this Vertical coat rack, which sacrifices some UX in order to deal with space constraints:

The assembly method is quite nifty:

The piece was created for design exhibition platform Objects May Vary, which invited several designers to explore the typology of the coat rack. The attendant exhibition takes place this week at Copenhagen's 3 Days of Design.

An Overproduced Day Display by an Industrial Designer's "Stupid Engineering" Project

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This amusingly overproduced Day Display is by New-Zealand-based Stupid Engineering.

"Made of precision milled and bent 2mm aluminium, the Day Display is a Stupid solution to a stupid problem."

"Wall mounted and in-keeping with Stupid Engineering's brutalist approach to function and aesthetic, the Day Display is the right amount of simple not dumb."

Explains Ben, the industrial designer behind it: "Stupid Engineering started as a personal project during some downtime at my work. Setting myself the challenge of creating aesthetically pleasing, easily manufacturable objects that achieve a goal or function in the simplest/silliest/stupidest way possible."

A Steel and Brass Monument to Vinyl Records

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This X Deck is a dedicated DJ console made of stainless steel and brass. Though it looks like a piece of 1970s Italian Modernism, it was actually designed present-day by NYC-Paris-based design studio Slash Objects.

"I wanted to imagine a glamorous minimal DJ table dedicated to vinyl," explains Slash founder/designer Arielle Assouline-Lichten. "The record artwork reflects in the table, the DJ has space to play, everything is in its place. Inspired as well by Gabriella Crespi's mixed metal pieces from the '70s."

The piece is on display at Slash's SoHo showroom, and can be made to order.

The UX Design Flaw of Philips' Dual-Sided Monitor

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Philips has released a dual-sided 24" monitor, intended for business or hospitality environments. The company says the arrangement offers "unmatched convenience" and allows for "seamless collaboration." The idea is that it can be used to share information during face-to-face meetings.

However, I think the concept is inherently flawed, from an ergonomic perspective. The entire point of a face-to-face meeting is, well, to see the other person's face. And when we look at screens, they're ideally perpendicular to our field of vision. In order to view this screen head-on, then, it would be placed at the face level of the interactees, blocking each other from view.

Obviously you would not do this; thus the screen would either be placed below face level, as at a counter, or off to the side, as at an across-the-desk meeting. And both participants then have an askew view of the screen, which I'd imagine would get annoying quickly.

For face-to-face meetings where information needs to be displayed on a screen, Toppan's VoiceBiz Universal Communication Display is a better design.

The Monza Minimalist Shelf Bracket

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It's pleasing to see a veteran industrial designer practicing the art of reduction. This Monza shelf bracket, by British ID'er Michael Marriott, uses the barest amount of material possible to fulfill its mission:

The packaging, too, is quite minimal.

It's in production by Marriott's Wood Metal Plastic brand. Made of stainless steel, each unit can hold 20kg (44 lbs).

On the product's web page, Marriott writes: "If you're local I can cut shelves too??"

Industrial Designer Fengfan Yang's Table Re-Think with +Halle

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It takes guts for a designer to re-imagine something as basic as a table. But Stuttgart-based industrial designer Fengfan Yang has done just that, in collaboration with Danish furniture brand +Halle.

"Hang On" is an unconventional table system for public spaces, designed to rethink and simplify the architecture of a table while offering customizable add-ons.

In today's fast-paced society, public furniture must address challenges like accommodating large crowds, catering to diverse needs, and maintaining spatial flow. "Hang On" meets these demands in public spaces such as restaurants, canteens, outdoor venues, festivals, markets, shopping centers, airports, and more.

It rethinks and challenges the architecture of table by reducing the table's components to essential elements provided as add-ons, it allows businesses and users to customize setups with a simple hanging action. The design saves space, facilitates cleanliness, and ensures quick assembly and disassembly. Its extruded profile construction also makes it cost-efficient and sustainable.

Incredibly, just last year Yang was an ID student at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart; this year he's signed a production deal with +Halle, and is also a 2026 German Design Award Newcomer nominee.

Audi Unveils Secret Supercar, New Design Direction

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Since taking over as Chief Creative Officer of Audi, automotive designer Massimo Frascella has made his goal clear: "Making our brand truly distinctive once again," he explains. "We want to shape a brand capable of inspiring desire and creating cultural impact."

Frascella—who has put in shifts at Bertone, Ford, Kia and Jaguar Land Rover, where he was formerly Design Director—says that the Audi TT made a strong impression on him. "In 1998, when the first Audi TT arrived at a dealership in Turin, I took a day off work to just look at the car in peace. I was there for hours, looking at the car from every angle, touching every surface. The staff probably thought I was crazy. But for me, the TT was more than just a car. It was a message: you don't need to shout to be heard. You don't need excess to make a statement. You just need clarity. And, more importantly, the courage to follow it."

Two years into the job, Frascella has now revealed his stamp on the brand. While most brands signal new design directions by unveiling a concept car, Frascella and Audi have skipped a step and brought a bold new design vision directly into production. This month they unveiled the Nuvolari, a supercar with a techno-futuristic look.

The move caught the automotive press off-guard; Audi managed to keep the development process leak-free and completely secret.

"Radical simplicity is at the heart of our approach," Frascella says. "We achieve clarity by reducing everything to the essential. We live in a world that is often shrill, fast-paced, and overloaded. Almost everything is overdone. The danger of losing your way is greater than ever. Our responsibility is to be better and do what really matters. And the outcome always has to be an emotion."

"Audi is an inexplicable harmony of technicality and emotion, where rational and irrational coexist."

The Nuvolari represents Audi's new design direction, which Frascella calls "The Radical Next."

The vehicle, which is clad in carbon-fiber composite body panels, is actually a hybrid. A 4-liter twin turbo V8 and three electric motors work together to produce nearly 1,000 horsepower. Just 499 units will be made, and they'll cost over $650,000.