05.09.25

Up and Coming

So Long, Synthetics — This Sustainable Furniture Collection is Bound by Natural Tree Sap

Harnessing tree sap to bind wood is a technique that dates back more than 45,000 years — a fact that fascinated Catskills-based studio Earth to People enough to revive the age-old process, using nature's glue to assemble furniture pieces crafted from reclaimed cedar and aluminum. Founders Jordan and Brittany Weller are “driven by a love of ancient stewardship and the handmade,” and for the past two years, they've dedicated their practice to reviving historic furniture-making traditions — taking things back to basics to create more sustainable, but still beautiful, seating and lighting.

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05.08.25

Excerpt: Book

The Modernist Travel Guide by Adam Štěch — The First Book Edited and Published By Sight Unseen — is Here to Take Your Travel Game to the Next Level

In this world, there are two types of travelers: those who prefer to relax, and those who prefer to explore. But within that second group, of which we are vehemently a part, there are those who will go to extreme lengths to acquire secret intel, especially in regards to one of our favorite subjects — peeping Modernist architecture around the world. They'll scale a wall to catch a glimpse of an early Le Corbusier villa on Lake Geneva, build a whole trip around visiting a house museum outside Oslo, or risk getting caught by the police photographing an off-limits interior. The person we know who's best at this type of recon is Adam Štěch, the architecture photographer behind the popular Instagram account @okolo_architecture, whose work we've followed for years and whose counsel we've often sought when traveling. Štěch has visited almost 50 countries on five continents to explore nearly 10,000 design landmarks, and today we're launching a project together that's been years in the making: the Modernist Travel Guide, photographed and written by Adam and edited and published by us.

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05.03.25

Saturday Selects

Week of April 28, 2025

A weekly recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: an Art Deco– and Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired textile collab between Block Shop and Sunbrella, two new design hotels for escaping into nature this summer, and a new series of lamps in wicker by Workstead.

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05.01.25

The Making of

Three Up-and-Coming Designers On How They Use the iPad Pro to Bridge the Gap Between Analog and Digital Processes

When we founded Sight Unseen more than 15 years ago, our goal was to invite readers into the minds and studios of designers, in order to help readers understand how things are actually made. Though the site is about so much more now, we still get a perpetual thrill from learning how some of our favorite furniture pieces go from the wisp of a concept to a fully fleshed-out product. Much has changed within the actual design process in those 15 years as well, as new tools have completely transformed the way creatives work, and digital technology has evolved beyond our wildest dreams — icons are still made with a saw, but they're also made on a screen. We checked in with three contemporary designers to see how their process has changed over time, and how they're using tools like the iPhone, iPad Pro, and Apple Pencil Pro to bridge analog design processes and digital technology.

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03.16.23

Excerpt: Exhibition

These Mysterious Glass Assemblages, On View at Marta, Were Inspired By Modernist Buildings and Corporate Architecture

Over the years, Jonah Takagi has worked with all kinds of materials, but it's glass that has preoccupied him throughout five summer residencies in the south of France, at the International Glass and Visual Arts Research Center, or CIRVA, in Marseilles. For Takagi, the experience yielded not only an unexpected love for Marseilles but also an ever-evolving series of mesmerizing angular vessels that reference, in their shape and in their texture, the Brutalist architecture of Kenzo Tange or Le Corbusier. His latest selection, a series of dusky, painterly assemblages, is on view through April 22 at Marta gallery in Los Angeles in a solo show called "Brut Vessels."

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04.28.25

In Conversation

Two of Our Favorite Woodworkers on Apprenticeships, Supportive Grandmas, and Learning the Rules So You Can Break Them

Rio Kobayashi and Luke Malaney each make sculptural furniture that exists somewhere between art, design, and carpentry. They're pieces that serve a function but at the same time question function: What should an object actually do? Where does its purpose lie? It’s a blurry line — or maybe not even a line at all. While they come from different backgrounds — Malaney is originally a Long Islander who lives in Brooklyn, while Kobayashi grew up in Japan and is currently based in London — they’ve arrived at a distinctively similar style and approach. Their work shares a playful and imaginative spirit, combined with a respect for longevity and integrity — objects that are well-made but also driven by curiosity, inventiveness, and experimentation. We suspected they’d have a lot to talk about — spoiler: they did! — so we wanted to introduce them and see where the conversation led.

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04.26.25

Saturday Selects

Week of April 21, 2025

A weekly recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: textiles galore, including new Madeline Weinrib rugs in dialogue with Rene Ricard at Emma Scully Gallery, a Su Wu–curated tapestry exhibition in Dallas, and woven paintings on view in Brooklyn.

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04.25.25

Trend Report

Is Bed Rotting the Biggest Trend to Come Out of Milan?

I'm slightly wary of what I'm about to write. After all, the last time I talked about a design trend reflecting our collective desire to escape, we plunged, not a month later, into the pandemic — which was certainly an exit from contemporary life of sorts. But while scrolling through Instagram during this month's Milan furniture fair, I began to notice an inescapable trend along those same lines: Beds were absolutely everywhere.

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04.22.25

Q+A

Crumpled Silver & Pillowy Stone — This Cult Favorite Jeweler’s First Furniture Collection Explores Some Familiar Themes

There’s a creative tension that animates the work of Anna Jewsbury, founder and artistic director of Completedworks in London. It centers on the push and pull between “ornament and practicality,” as she puts it, exploring a balance of function and frivolity. What often results are pieces, loaded with character, that make you look twice — if not again and again — trying to figure them out. Completedworks began in 2013, with jewelry, before delving into ceramics and homewares. But most recently, Jewsbury decided to branch out even furniture, launching the brand's first-ever collection at Villa Borsani with Alcova in Milan earlier this month.

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04.19.25

Saturday Selects

Week of April 14, 2025

A weekly recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: stainless-steel urinal sculptures, a coral-colored house balanced on a steep site, and fruit-decorated furniture that aims to tackle the stigma of eating disorders.

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04.18.25

Fair Report

The Best of Milan Design Week 2025, Part II: Standout Exhibitions, Projects, and Interiors

We're rounding out our coverage of this year's Milan fair with a post dedicated to the best exhibitions, interiors, and projects. In our case, focusing primarily on those produced by independent designers and galleries.

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04.17.25

Fair Report

The Best of Milan Design Week 2025, Part I: Our Favorite Collection Debuts

What resonated with us most this year in Milan was, as it often is, collections by independent designers who have been in their studios, often for months or even years, toiling to bring these products to market.

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