Proving that contemporary handcrafted furniture is not oxymoronic
If you are looking for a handcrafted piece of furniture with high aesthetic value, and the kind of substance that will take 4 people an hour to haul up a staircase, then the Lambert company is for you. With it's head office in Mönchengladbach Germany, the Lambert company trains it's craftspeople to reproduce their unique designs in various locations around the world, and herald themselves as the custodians of traditional arts and crafts. They stress the use of natural materials, dowels and wax finishes, but yet have a penchant for clean lines and little to no embellishments leaving their pieces looking thoroughly contemporary. While there may be variations in what is available from distributors, what is constant is the high quality and design of each piece. Gunther Lambert will no doubt be highly desired as collectibles in the decades to come.
Link: Lambert
Model making and photography have a symbiotic relationship. In model making the idea is to create something that resembles real life, but there's no doubting that it is a model when it is in front of you. But add a camera and some light, and that which is real becomes less obvious. Minimiam is a project that plays with our minds as much as it plays with its subject. The team of Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle have produced a series of unordinary and extraordinary photos from their unusual models that delight as much as they confuse. While there's no doubting the cupcake is in fact a cupcake, the camera allows us to entertain the possibility of a cupcake world and cupcake workers. 
Martha Sturdy is a Vancouver BC master of casting resin. People who have worked with resin say that it is a substance that you love to hate, and hate to love and that the unexpected is bound to happen, which is not always a good thing. But Sturdy, who graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design back in the early 80's, has spent years dedicating her professional career to the control and manipulation of resin, a dedication that has yielded polymeric magnificence at a very large scale.
At the time of parc du Sausset's planning in 1979 the trend in France was still to create highly designed parks using exotics and built features. The competition brief for parc du Sausset was different in that it broke with tradition and specified conservation. Michel and Claire Corajoud took up the challenge, and proposed a naturalistic planting scheme that would be as much of a buffer to the growing industry and expanding communities, as it would echo the shapes of its industrial iconography and reflect an agrarian past. 
As Montreal enjoys a burst of activity in the housing market developers are looking for properties that can combine all of the elements that make Montreal unique like history, style, and cityscape. Prével's Le Loft does just that by taking a contemporary approach to the reinterpretation of the Lowney candy factory, home of the Cherry Blossom. The Lowney factory sits on the edge of Old Montreal, a stylish and trendy neighbourhood adjacent to the waterfront and downtown Montreal. While the layout and spa-like finishes are typical of most new condos today, what makes Le Loft stand out from the rest is the 4 season urban chalet situated on the roof. The chalet is a glass and steel structure that provides shelter from Montreal's harsh winter, and stunning views of the waterfront and city.
There is a certain rush that comes from participating in the genesis of a great idea, and yet there is much to be learned from watching an idea unfold on the pages of Alejandro Bahamon's book Sketch Plan Build. In Sketch Plan Build, 30 architects let you in on the creative and technical processes that led to the final plan and construction of major works. Beautifully illustrated, this book provides rough sketches and digital renderings that allow you to understand the thoughts and influences of each featured architect creating a behind the scenes companion to the final product. Building after building is detailed over 500 pages that highlight the mastery and variety of approaches to drawing, model making and photography giving you a front row seat to the metamorphosis of a single simple idea into a project
of great complexity.
A 'city within a city' is a phrase used in Japan to describe a cluster of buildings connected by industry type, restaurants, recreational facilities and occasionally residences. Shiodome Shiosite is one of Tokyo's newest complexes consisting of skyscrapers that house media giants like Nippon Television and Dentsu Inc., one of the largest advertising agencies in Japan. 
The new Pop Series guitars from RKS take guitar lust to a whole new level. These brightly coloured electric beauties carry the names Rockwork Orange, Pink Lipstick and Fine Lime are hand-crafted from maple and alder, and have CNC machine aircraft aluminum alloy ribs with chrome hardware finishes. 
When designing a kitchen every decision can be agonizing and time consuming, so why complicate things? Sometimes simplicity rules, and in this regard Newform faucets stand out. Newform pares down the faucet to its most basic form, and then exploits the angles with details that are conspicuously constructivist. Handles that operate left to right instead of back to front, and spouts that jut out at 90 degrees are just some of the differences between Newform and the competition. 
Moshe Safdie is an architect whose designs exude harmony. This is especially true of the new Crystal Bridges museum and cultural centre designed for Bentonville Arkansas.
Buildings that walk and wear "puffa-jackets"? If you thought the Halley V Research Station from 1956 was getting a little drab and dated, then the proposals for the new Halley VI Research Station will delight your intellectual and aesthetic sensibilities.
If laser cutting is the new handcrafted, then Mathias Bengtsson is a master craftsman. Generated by machine, his designs look like they have been carved from centuries of exposure to the elements, but in reality it is the flexibility of laser cutting that allows Bengtsson to create organic forms out of materials that don't normally lend themselves to manipulation.
Need a reason to visit Montreal this winter? Montreal's underground city is a good enough one in my books. With its inception in 1966 the plan for the underground coincided with the opening of Montreal's Metro, and has since grown to include 1,500 offices and 1,600 boutiques. It also has numerous art installations, a skating rink, and leads you through historic and newly constructed buildings. For instance, you can go from IM Pei's Place Ville Marie to