Dezeen's favourite furniture and lighting from July

A flat-pack wardrobe that can be assembled with a single Allen key and a concrete bench made of clam shells feature in this roundup of furniture and lighting, spotted by Dezeen’s design team over the past month.

ReFrame by Becca Panter

This flat-pack wardrobe by design graduate Becca Panter took home no less than three different awards at this year’s New Designers showcase.

The project was born from the discovery that one furniture piece in student halls tends to break above all others: the built-in chipboard wardrobe, which is usually completely unrepairable and mostly ends up in a skip when it is inevitably damaged.

Panter’s alternative, made entirely from folded steel for easy recycling, can be assembled and disassembled with a single Allen key and proves that just because furniture is affordable and flat-packed doesn’t mean it can’t be demounted, repaired and recycled.

Lamps by City Girls

City Girls is an anonymous London design duo causing a stir with its one-of-a-kind lamps made from a mishmash of found treasures.

The professional scavengers leave no stone unturned when sourcing reclaimed materials to transform into lighting – from lace trim, coat hangers and bakelite found across eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and even on the side of the road.

Each lamp is finished as a “city girl” in her own right, affectionately named things like Zoe, Pamela and Jean to give the pieces distinct identities.

The lighting was recently displayed in an exhibition curated by Jermaine Gallacher at the Ragged School in London Bridge, which concluded in July.

Screwssssss stool by Matteo Voisin

For fans of Mikael Axelsson’s wood-clamp IKEA stool (guilty as charged), French designer Matteo Voisin has delivered a whole furniture collection that builds on the idea of designing objects to playfully communicate their function.

His most distilled and successful take on the theme is the Screwssssss stool – three identical oak boards held together by colourful, oversized hex nuts to signal that the piece can be easily dismantled, repaired and understood by its owner.

Barefoot Table by Kilzi

Barcelona brand Kilzi sought to capture a sense of “motion held in balance” with Barefoot Table, which was designed with playfully slanted legs to look as if they are moving.

Crafted from solid dyed chestnut, the dining table was created as “an ode to the quiet movement that exists even in moments of stillness”, according to studio founder Jorge Suárez-Kilzi.

Heimatlos Chair

A trio of interlocking components makes up this dining chair by the emerging Berlin- and Frankfurt-based Em Ef Studio.

The studio painstakingly 3D-printed grooved layers of biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) to create the seating, which was designed with an ornate back to recall traditional handcrafted furniture despite the contemporary process.

The result is a smart meeting of past and present design languages.

Othko Lamp by Minjae Kim

New York designer Minjae Kim wrapped two sheets of beautifully translucent fibreglass around a central bulb to create this pendant lighting.

A subtle layer of paint was applied to the inner sheet, creating a ghostly outline on the facade of the lamp. When illuminated, you could be forgiven for thinking that a couple of ice-cold negronis were trapped inside the lamp itself – an illusion that makes for a particularly pleasing design.

Lopsy Lily stool by Emily Savill

So far, the design of posture-improving seats has left much to be desired, usually resembling a kind of cross between sex furniture and medieval torture devices.

Kingston University graduate Emily Savill has delivered a rather more elegant take on the theme with her Lopsy Lily stool. Perched on a circular base and an angled “hoof” cast from recycled aluminium, it subconsciously forces the user to engage their core, improve their posture and maintain lower-body movement to reduce pain and stiffness.

Clam Crete bench by Sami Kimberley

Regenerative designer Sami Kimberley has given invasive Golden Clam shells that she collected from the Thames a second life – crushing them up to make more sustainable concrete and forming them into multi-purpose building blocks.

These blocks can be adapted to fulfil a menagerie of different functions, as a planter, a bench or an entire shelving system, using only readily available materials.

By inviting interaction, the project hopes to demonstrate how materials can help us rebuild a closer relationship to the places we call home and the ecosystems that sustain us.

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